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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30092097">the momentary space that we call now</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/beecalm/pseuds/beecalm'>beecalm</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>SK8 the Infinity (Anime)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Happy Ending, M/M, No Major Character Death, Sort Of, brief oc appearances, ghost au, learning to process grief by letting a ghost teach you to skateboard</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 21:47:03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>21,805</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30092097</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/beecalm/pseuds/beecalm</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Ghosts are abstract things; leftover memories and what-could-have-beens.</p>
<p>Langa is certain that Reki can’t be one of them.</p>
<p>(or; the park beside the sea is haunted. it takes Langa two weeks of skateboarding lessons to realise this.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hasegawa Langa/Kyan Reki</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>82</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>750</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>this started as a simple au about dumb ghost shenanigans. I don't know what happened either.</p>
<p>important notes:<br/>- title borrowed from ‘spent my life’ by kindred<br/>- S doesn’t exist in this au simply because there’s enough emotional damage in this thing as it is<br/>- no major character death, but this fic does still deal heavily with the concept of grief, particularly the loss of a family member. please take care while reading.<br/>- My skateboarding experience is limited to crashing face-first into a hedge once. This is probably very evident.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>It’s warmer in Okinawa than Langa expects.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The night outside of the airport is heavy and uncomfortable- the sort of good weather that has him shrugging off his coat by the doors even though nightfall is well on its way. It’s a novelty that wears off in less than ten minutes, as Langa’s mom cranks up the air conditioning in the car and comments that they’ve got a long summer ahead of them. It’s warm, the scenery is new and unfamiliar, the sea stretches flat and dark alongside the car window. Langa doesn’t think he’s ever seen so much </span>
  <em>
    <span>water </span>
  </em>
  <span>in one place before. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The whole ordeal still feels like a holiday- some extended vacation where he’ll only get over his jet-lag on the last day, before going home and repeating the process all over again. The car window presses coolly against Langa’s cheek, while the air conditioning makes an uncomfortable noise and barely puts a dent in the warmth. He just hopes they make it to his Aunt’s house soon- so they can catch some sleep before moving into their new apartment once the next day arrives.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Maybe we’ll check out the sea, before we get settled in,” Nanako offers, tentative. Like she expects Langa to feel anything other than exhausted.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He counts down in his head before he responds; acclimating to the warmth, the air conditioning, the heaviness that feels as if it's settled into the marrow of his bones. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“If you want.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Wrong response. His mom looks worried- she </span>
  <em>
    <span>has </span>
  </em>
  <span>looked worried for months, in that way she does where she talks to herself under her breath and thinks nobody else can hear her. Langa thinks it's his fault in a way- for never inviting friends home, for putting his snowboarding goggles in the drawer and never getting them out again, for uprooting half-way across the world and meeting the prospect with little more than mild apathy. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>(Langa knows he has thoughts about it, somewhere. Strong emotions that he doesn’t know how to untangle enough to actually </span>
  <em>
    <span>feel </span>
  </em>
  <span>them. They get caught between his fingers too easily. It took his dad years to teach him how to tie his shoelaces- and this is no different. He can’t be a fast learner at everything.)</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“It doesn’t snow here,” Nanako says, as they turn a corner and the lights of the city shine bright up ahead. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It sounds almost like an apology.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>-</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Three facts about Okinawa: </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>- The warm night of a week beforehand was no fluke. Langa mourns his expensive winter coat, as he condemns it to a life spent at the back of his wardrobe.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>- Finding a job is an impossible feat. Langa gets one interview- and that’s because they copied him into the email by mistake.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>- There’s an empty desk beside Langa’s own at school. When he asks about it, the girl in front gets shifty-eyes and looks like she’d rather sink through the floor than answer. Langa doesn’t think he’s ever seen someone switch the topic to idol groups quite so fast.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Home is home. School is school. Aside from the half-peeled-off smiley face sticker in the corner of the empty desk, there’s nothing to make it into a mystery. Perhaps someone dropped out, or got </span>
  <em>
    <span>kicked </span>
  </em>
  <span>out, or maybe they just miscounted- or maybe Langa has missed enough of his maths lesson thinking about it, mulling it over instead of the quadratics on the board. He’s never been the best at </span>
  <em>
    <span>focusing.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Nanako spends more time at work than she does in the apartment, and Langa feels as if he’s sunk up to his knees in a snowdrift; unable to help aside from becoming </span>
  <em>
    <span>really </span>
  </em>
  <span>good at making omelettes for dinner. He’s got savings he could dig into, but his mom just stared at him as if he’d grown an extra head when he’d brought it up, like the notion was something close to </span>
  <em>
    <span>unthinkable.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>(“They’re </span>
  <em>
    <span>savings </span>
  </em>
  <span>for a reason,” she’d told him, wearing a sad sort of half-smile. “We always get by, somehow.”)</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Three facts about Hasegawa Langa:</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>- He still isn’t used to being in Japan. He accidentally called his chemistry teacher by the given name on her lanyard and almost got sent outside- the cultural differences are wider than the language gap will ever be.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>- He almost misses snowboarding. (</span>
  <em>
    <span>Almost</span>
  </em>
  <span>, because he never quite figured out how to stand on the slopes without feeling like there’s a limb missing, a piece of him gone.)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>- He’s lost. Hopelessly, ridiculously </span>
  <em>
    <span>lost.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He got distracted somewhere between the 7-Eleven and the multistorey car park, thinking about homework and how blue the sky gets during the day and how he </span>
  <em>
    <span>really </span>
  </em>
  <span>needs to stop sleeping through his alarm every morning. Walking around an unfamiliar city in the dark is a terrible idea on the best of days, but Langa needed somewhere to clear his head- somewhere quiet and alone, without his dad’s happy face grinning at him from every bookshelf.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The </span>
  <em>
    <span>somewhere </span>
  </em>
  <span>he had in mind was not a vending machine near the mouth of the bay, spending the last of his cash on a melon soda that tastes kind of gross and lukewarm. Maybe a broken refrigerator setting, or maybe just Langa’s bad luck.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>At least standing by the sea is relaxing in a way, watching as the waves lap in and out and in again, catching the flicker of the street lamps that line the promenade. The air is balmy in his lungs, and Langa has yet to figure out if he prefers it over the sharp tang of ice on the wind, stepping out into the snow. It’s different. He hasn’t quite untangled those feelings yet. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>A quick walk alongside the water only seems to ruin Langa’s sense of direction further- the cars that pass by become sparse and the lamp posts even more so, leaving him to search blindly around for a street sign that he can offer to google maps in exchange for a route home. The skatepark by the sea is the first noticeable landmark which Langa comes across; the shapes of the ramps highlighted beneath the only proper lighting he’s found in quarter of an hour. Brightly lit- and mercifully empty.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Almost </span>
  </em>
  <span>empty.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Langa notices the boy’s hair before anything else- a shock of red beneath the floodlights as he leaps and the board beneath his feet leaps with him, sailing effortlessly over a traffic cone that lies on its side in the middle of the park. Once, twice, three times in a row, each jump punctuated with a grin that Langa can see from meters away. Full of teeth, eyes half-closed- never growing bored of the flight, the airtime.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>(Langa knows the feeling, in theory. Nailing a jump, then nailing it seven more times afterwards, each more exhilarating than the last. Though, Langa thought the feeling only worked when there was someone on the slope below, smiling up, teaching him how to fly higher next time. The boy, with his floodlight grin, seems just fine on his own.)</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Watching him distracts Langa from the fact that he’s lost, just for a little while. A momentary respite to clear his head of anything other than wheels against concrete, the slam of the board into the ground. If skateboarding is anything like snowboarding, the boy’s technique is good- </span>
  <em>
    <span>great </span>
  </em>
  <span>even, considering that his feet aren’t even attached to the damn thing- the kind of person Langa would want to race against if he ever got the chance.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The wave of nostalgia that hits Langa is not something he has time to brace himself for- and he almost misses it when the boy takes a run-up and sails into the air, impossibly higher than before.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Langa has seen enough snowboarding accidents to know where this goes.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The board goes one way, the body goes the other- dislocations are painfully common and painful </span>
  <em>
    <span>full stop</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Momentum is a vicious thing, and the boy is grinning in the face of it like he’s never felt fear in his life.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>In the same instance that Langa shouts for him to </span>
  <em>
    <span>be careful, </span>
  </em>
  <span>the board flips 360 degrees beneath the boy’s feet and he lands right as rain- looking more surprised than he has any right to be.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>(</span>
  <em>
    <span>His feet aren’t attached to it, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Langa reminds himself, to distract himself from the way gold-bright eyes stare at him from across the skatepark.)</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“You were watching?” The boy’s kilowatt grin comes back, brighter than ever. Langa thinks he’s still stuck a whole minute in the past, watching him control the board like it came as naturally as breathing. When Langa catches up, the boy is already standing in front of him, his skateboard tucked under one arm. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Langa shakes his head, something which the boy evidently finds hilarious. He’s got a bright laugh, one that feels like </span>
  <em>
    <span>Okinawa- </span>
  </em>
  <span>all year-long summer and warm nights, blue skies and typhoon warnings. It’s loud enough to echo, and Langa wonders what he did that’s so funny.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“You </span>
  <em>
    <span>were,</span>
  </em>
  <span>” he insists. Langa isn’t sure how to talk his way out of this one. “You wanna try?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He stares at the boy’s bruised hands, the battered edges of the board beneath them- thinking about snowfall and the terrain park in the morning as the sun breaks over the treeline. The boy waits expectantly.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Why would I?” As far as Langa knows, it isn’t customary to offer people your skateboard directly after meeting them. Not here, not </span>
  <em>
    <span>anywhere.</span>
  </em>
  <span> “I don’t even know your name.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Reki,” the boy- </span>
  <em>
    <span>Reki</span>
  </em>
  <span>- announces, without missing a beat. “Just thought you looked interested. You were kind of staring- like- </span>
  <em>
    <span>really </span>
  </em>
  <span>hard.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Langa,” something about Reki’s grin is clearly messing with his sense of self preservation. “And I wasn’t staring. I’m new here and I got lost.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Langa,” Reki hums the name, as if it’s something he intends to say a lot. Getting used to it, getting comfortable. “Langa. Langa! I’ll give you directions if you give skateboarding a go.” He holds out the board as an offering, so Langa can see the bright stickers plastered all over the bottom. Gears and wings, all bright yellow and so fitting that the two of them- board and boy- could probably be twins. Despite himself, Langa almost laughs at that.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>On the one hand, he really doesn’t want to get on the skateboard. On the other hand, he </span>
  <em>
    <span>really </span>
  </em>
  <span>needs to get home. (A third hand: something about Reki’s smile is overwhelmingly convincing.)</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Langa takes the board, places it on the ground, and barely manages to stop it from rolling away. He hasn’t even </span>
  <em>
    <span>stepped </span>
  </em>
  <span>on it yet.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I can hold your hand if you want,” Reki offers. Langa can’t tell if he’s joking or not.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He gets one foot on, and it’s nothing like snowboarding at all. The gravity is all wrong and the wheels keep moving- Langa hasn’t felt this unbalanced since he first graduated to a full-sized snowboard and knocked a chip out of his left incisor on the front step of his house.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It takes him less than a second to fall flat on his ass, and Reki laughs hard enough to bring tears to his eyes, doubled over in the corner of Langa’s vision. “You didn’t even last a </span>
  <em>
    <span>second</span>
  </em>
  <span>!”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s impossible,” Langa announces once he’s peeled himself off the ground; nudging the offending board with the toe of his shoe and letting it roll off to the side pathetically. “I don’t get how you can even stand on this thing.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Well, that’s easy,” Reki grabs the board, takes the challenge- and he flies.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Right in front of Langa; the same leap as before. This time, it’s close enough that he can see each movement, the tap of the board that sends it spinning, every bit of excitement in Reki’s eyes. Langa wonders if he ever used to look like that when he snowboarded, if he ever shone so bright. He doesn’t quite tear his gaze away in time when Reki lands effortlessly in front of him and throws a peace sign into the air, still wearing that forest-fire of a grin.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>(Langa thinks he might understand why it doesn’t snow in Okinawa.)</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“See?” Reki isn’t even breathing heavily when he speaks. “It’s not impossible at all! You should see some of the stuff other skaters can do- now </span>
  <em>
    <span>that’s </span>
  </em>
  <span>impossible. Y’know there’s this guy who can-”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Directions, please,” Langa cuts in, because it’s late and Reki’s excitement is borderline contagious. He really needs to get back before his mom comes home from work. He hasn’t even touched his maths assignment.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Right, yeah,” with a sheepish grin, Reki pushes in closer to get a look at Langa’s phone screen. He moves as if he’s about to loop an arm around Langa’s shoulder, </span>
  <em>
    <span>contact </span>
  </em>
  <span>clearly a natural thing to him, but the touch never quite lands. It hovers, seeking permission but never asking directly. Langa can feel his heart beating a tandem against his ribs, so he’s kind of glad that Reki doesn’t get any closer. “Where do you live?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Reki sends Langa off with a notes app full of supposedly fool-proof instructions, the imprint of a floodlight smile on the back of his eyelids, and a promise that he’ll be in the same place tomorrow- if Langa wants to see for himself that skating is far from impossible.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>(Sure, it doesn’t snow in Okinawa. Langa wonders if this might be the next best thing.)</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>-</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Against his better judgement, Langa returns to the skatepark the night afterwards- following Reki’s directions in reverse until he spots the shimmer of the water through the treeline. Like the night before, Reki is already there when he arrives, throwing himself into a jump that looks equally as exhilarating as it does terrifying. He wastes no time in shouting a greeting as soon as he looks down and sees Langa standing there, waiting.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>An hour in and Langa has just about gotten </span>
  <em>
    <span>standing </span>
  </em>
  <span>down- (read; he no longer falls flat on his back every time he tries to get on the board)- but even still Reki keeps giving him odd looks. Like there’s something bothering him; leaving him deep in thought. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>In all honesty, Langa isn’t sure why he’s taking the whole skateboarding thing so seriously- when all he’s gotten out of it so far are bruises and a nasty scrape on his elbow. (He thinks it might have something to do with the way the sea blends into the sky, the way Reki’s smile is contagious.)</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“You stand like you’re expecting the board to be longer than it is,” Reki’s expression is curious as Langa peels himself off the ground for the third time in a row. “Your center of gravity is kind of weird too.” </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He tries to mirror Langa’s posture, dropping into a near-perfect stance for the slopes back home.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Langa toes at the board, letting it roll a little. “I used to snowboard,” he admits.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“That explains it!” Reki snaps his fingers sharp and loud over the steady lull of the waves. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>That’s</span>
  </em>
  <span> why you look scared for your life every time your feet come off the board.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t-” Langa goes to protest, but finds that Reki isn’t wrong in the slightest. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Reki is almost scarily perceptive- as Langa has begun to realise. He picks up on the little details, the things Langa didn’t even notice he was doing himself- cushioning his fall like he expects snow behind him instead of concrete, angling his feet all wrong, tilting his body weight instead of pushing with his feet. Langa wonders just how much his bright amber-gold eyes can see.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I guess it must be a pretty hard habit to break- if you put me on a snowboard I’d probably forget you can’t do a kickflip and dislocate my ankle,” sitting himself down on the concrete beside Langa, Reki laughs airily. “Guess there’s not really anywhere around here for that sort of stuff though. My legs are safe for now.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Again, Reki is right- Langa checked more than once before he moved. Even if he </span>
  <em>
    <span>wanted </span>
  </em>
  <span>to snowboard, he wouldn’t be able to. “There’s loads of places back in Canada- not so much here.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Woah, Canada?” When Langa turns to face him, Reki’s eyes are wide as saucers, the expression on his face bordering on comical. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Mr. International! </span>
  </em>
  <span>That does explain why you keep cursing in english, though.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Langa goes to tell him that he’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>far </span>
  </em>
  <span>from international- Okinawa is the only place he’s been to outside of Canada, after all- but Reki has already descended into a tangent about landmarks and food items which Langa has never even heard of, so he sits back and lets himself get carried away with it. At least, when Reki is talking, he’s not at risk of getting any more bruises on his knees.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Reki speaks like he’s out of practice- like he can’t quite get the words out fast enough, fitting so much into one breath that it’s kind of exhausting. As he talks about the 2010 Winter Olympics and makes some godawful joke about a moose and a zebra crossing, Langa wonders just how </span>
  <em>
    <span>caffeinated</span>
  </em>
  <span> the other boy is. Perhaps he figured out how to get the vending machine down the road to spit out something other than lukewarm soda. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Still, as overwhelming as he is, it’s fun spending time with Reki. More fun than anyone at school has proven to be- it’s been weeks and Langa still hasn’t learned anyone’s name- and more interesting than the perpetually empty desk beside his own. Even if talking to Reki does come alongside falling off a skateboard five times in a row, it’s better than any amount of sitting around his bedroom doing homework would be.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>(He’d rather be working at some restaurant or stacking shelves, because he’s not getting paid for making Reki laugh every time he yells and goes flying; but Langa will take what he can get.)</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I’ll get the hang of it eventually,” Langa promises after he falls yet again, half aimed at Reki, half aimed at himself.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Though the skatepark is lit only by the streetlamps overhead, Reki’s eyes are almost bioluminescent as he leans in, a little closer than Langa was prepared for. He can see the tiny divot of a scar on Reki’s cheek, the choppy ends of his hair where he must have cut it himself, the way his hands bracket Langa on either side.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re serious about learning?” He crowds closer still. “Like- </span>
  <em>
    <span>totally </span>
  </em>
  <span>serious?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Langa almost bites his own tongue in surprise because Reki is close, bright, excited; and if his entire body hadn’t gone numb then he thinks he would have turned red to the tips of his ears by now. He’s not used to this sort of thing- the irrational hammer of his heart against his ribs, the futile </span>
  <em>
    <span>what is wrong with you; calm down </span>
  </em>
  <span>in the back of his mind. Maybe he’s dying. (Maybe he’s overreacting.)</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I guess,” Langa replies; eventually. It’s not quite a promise, but it’s still close enough to make Reki </span>
  <em>
    <span>beam</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>-</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Hasegawa, I’d appreciate it if you saved napping for </span>
  <em>
    <span>after </span>
  </em>
  <span>class has finished,” the click of his teacher’s heels across the linoleum shakes Langa awake so suddenly that he almost falls out of his chair. Though he’s no stranger to spacing out in class and missing questions directed at him from the front- falling asleep feels like a new low entirely.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>As soon as the muffled laughter has dispersed, the boy who sits to Langa’s right leans over the side of his chair, conspiratory. “You look like you haven’t slept in days.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Really, it’s not far from the truth. Langa has always tried to stick to a decent sleep schedule, but meeting Reki in the park every night four days running has done a significant amount of damage to his usual seven hours. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Still kind of jet-lagged,” the lie slips out easily, and it’s enough to placate the guy to his right into turning back around. He whistles an impressed comment that </span>
  <em>
    <span>timezones are no joke </span>
  </em>
  <span>under his breath as he goes.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Left to his own devices again, Langa falls back asleep within minutes.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>-</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>(If Langa intends to keep skating with Reki, then he’s going to have to start compartmentalising. Catching some lost sleep on the rooftop over lunchtime- that feels like a good place to start.)</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>-</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Langa did not fall in love with snowboarding the first time he tried it.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It took him until he was seven, the first time his dad drove him to the terrain park up the mountain- where Langa felt the snow in his hair, his heart pressed up against his ribcage, the thrill of moving faster than he ever thought was possible. He’d gone flying over a jump that was way beyond his skillset, opened his eyes to the panorama of the snowscape below his feet, and he’d fallen in love.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>(He’d also broken his arm- a neat fracture that left him with six weeks in a cast and stern talking-to from his dad in the middle of the emergency room about knowing his limits. He barely listened; because back then he felt pretty damn </span>
  <em>
    <span>limitless</span>
  </em>
  <span>.)</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Similarly, Langa doesn’t fall in love with skateboarding the first time he tries it either.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Reki isn’t at the park yet when Langa arrives on the cusp of sundown a week and a half into his skating lessons, the water stained pink beneath the evening sky. He digs out the board which Reki gave him to practice on- a beaten up old thing that Langa suspects someone got fed up of and dumped behind a bush overnight. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Just until you decide what you want for your own board- </span>
  </em>
  <span>Reki had told him. As if Langa falling in love with skateboarding was inevitable. Not if- </span>
  <em>
    <span>when.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Reki isn’t at the park yet, so there’s nobody around to tell Langa he needs to get used to treating his body and his board as separate entities, pieces that can split and reunite as they please.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He tapes his feet to the board. Perhaps not his best idea, but perching up on top of the tallest ramp with a familiar weight below him is comforting in a way Langa couldn’t explain if he tried. The scenery is foreign, the sunlight splinters across the bay and plays through the leaves of the palm trees instead of reflecting brightly against the snow, but Langa could go through the motions with his hands tied behind his back if he wanted. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Tipping off the summit, the sun caught in his hair- it’s nothing he hasn’t done before.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>At first, it’s terrifying.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The board still doesn’t do what he wants it to, and the wheels strain in protest as he goes flying off the bottom of the ramp in a direction unsuited for the straight line of the trucks. Langa almost falls flat on his face, then almost hits the railing around the perimeter of the park, then almost loses all of his momentum swinging himself back into the center. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Then he hits the second ramp, and Langa swears he feels snow against his eyelashes.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The world turns on its head, the water opens up beneath him, and it’s dizzying in the best possible way.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The path towards the left of the skatepark is a steep, rocky descent towards the sea, and so Langa takes it- comfortable enough with the board below his feet to know that he’s not going to fall. Not just yet. He still needs-</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Langa!” It’s always impossible to tell where Reki comes from or how long he’s been watching, but Langa turns around in time to see him tearing down the slope after him on foot. The panic in his voice is audible. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>I remember now, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Langa wants to tell him, as he dodges a tree root rearing up from the center of the path. </span>
  <em>
    <span>I remember how this works.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The wheels still cause issues, but the longer he skates the more Langa learns to accommodate- keeping a straight path, jumping to avoid obstacles instead of swerving around them. Reki’s footsteps slow behind him, and he’s staring wide-eyed when Langa chances another look over his shoulder- an expression he can’t decipher. He looks semi-transparent beneath the dying sunlight, like Langa could skate right through him if he tried. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Snow and sunbleached rock overlay into one image, as the path opens up and the saltwater spreads endlessly out before Langa. The jump he takes out of the trail’s mouth is a familiar one- one of his favourites, something his dad taught him years beforehand. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Langa fell out of love with snowboarding once his dad was no longer there to cheer him on from below. Because the slopes felt empty even in peak season, and though Langa still caught the attention of strangers as he tumbled through the air, it was never the </span>
  <em>
    <span>same. </span>
  </em>
  <span>It was a hole in his chest, one he carried across the Pacific with him, threatening to eat him alive every time he caught sight of his dad’s snowshoes sitting where he’d left them in the hallway.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Now, Reki stands on the shoreline below him.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Eyes wide and sunshine-gold, staring up at Langa as if he’s a snow shower in summertime- stubbornly existing against all the odds. Langa feels his heart beating fast fast fast, the same way it did when his dad drove him to the emergency room after he broke his arm, and he sat in the passenger seat with his head still stuck in the clouds. He remembers what it was like to feel limitless.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Langa falls in love with skateboarding above the mouth of the bay, the springtime sun coming to rest upon the waves behind him. He falls in love, and he hopes Reki sees every second of it.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Taping his feet to the board was still a </span>
  <em>
    <span>terrible </span>
  </em>
  <span>idea. He lands off-center, the board goes flying and takes his feet with it, and Langa only has his hands available to stop himself with. His palms take two thirds of the damage and the side of his face takes the rest, skidding to a halt then lying winded beside the shoreline. It’s hard to tell if the breathlessness is from the excitement, or the blunt-force trauma.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re </span>
  <em>
    <span>insane-</span>
  </em>
  <span>” When Reki’s face swims into view above him, he looks just as excited as Langa feels. “That was incredible- I’ve never seen anyone skate like that, never mind someone with their </span>
  <em>
    <span>feet taped to the board. </span>
  </em>
  <span>You’re ridiculous- you’re-”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>In the midst of Reki’s outburst, Langa almost forgets the injuries to his face and hands, wincing as he struggles upright. Reki catches onto the brief flash of pain immediately- completely tuned into Langa’s thoughts even in the short time they’ve known each other. “No more taping your feet, though,” he cautions sternly- though his excitement still creeps through. “I don’t know how it works in snowboarding, but you can’t stop a skateboard with your face.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Langa thinks about diving face first into the snow. Even the prospect is enough to make him shiver all the way through unpicking the tape from his shoes.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Reki doesn’t ask him if he’s doing okay, but the pointed way he’s staring is more than enough.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Hurts a lot,” Langa prods experimentally at his cheek. “I want to do it again, though. It was-” Exhilarating, terrifying, enough to sate the black-hole between his ribs. “-Fun. It felt good.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“And there I was worried that you were gonna be scared off,” Reki laughs warmly. “Round two can wait though- let’s get you patched up first.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Reki’s outstretched hand falters in the space between them for a moment too long- in the same way it always does when he stumbles back before tossing an arm around Langa’s shoulders, or when he goes in for a high-five and withdraws at the last second. This time though, he makes it all the way there.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>His hands are cold- too cold for a boy who holds the Okinawa summertime in his grin- and his fingers wrap around Langa’s wrist like ice as he hauls him to his feet. Langa is once again struck by the unsettling feeling that Reki could disappear at any moment; exactly as transient as the daylight which bleeds out of the sky.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Your hands are freezing,” Langa tells him as such, while they walk in line back up to the park.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Reki just hums thoughtfully. “I didn’t realise.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>(If Langa focuses on the way Reki rambles about the board modifications he thinks would suit him just right, he can almost ignore the cold.)</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>-</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“How long have you been snowboarding for?” Reki asks once they’re back at the skatepark, sticking plasters all over Langa’s hands by the glow of the floodlights. Langa fixates on the tiny moths that fly loops around his shock of red hair.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Since I was two,” he flexes his fingers experimentally once Reki gives him the all clear, wincing around the broken skin. “My dad taught me.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Do both of you not miss it?” Langa is aware that Reki couldn’t have known otherwise, but the words still feel like a punch to his gut. “I mean it’s not exactly like there’s much opportunity for it here. Maybe your dad could learn to skateboard too, or-”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“He died last year. That’s why we moved,” Langa avoids catching Reki’s eye. Though it's been months, he still hasn’t figured out how to sift through the awful, difficult feelings that come alongside saying it out loud. “I didn’t enjoy snowboarding afterwards. I didn’t really enjoy much at all.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Well, if it means anything,” Langa doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to express in words how </span>
  <em>
    <span>grateful </span>
  </em>
  <span>he is for Reki’s ability to pick up on things, skateboarding or otherwise. Because there’s no pity in his voice, no demand for Langa to dig into the complicated feelings he’s long since buried deep in the snow. There’s only </span>
  <em>
    <span>here, </span>
  </em>
  <span>and there’s only </span>
  <em>
    <span>now. </span>
  </em>
  <span>“You looked like you were having fun, down by the bay. It made </span>
  <em>
    <span>me </span>
  </em>
  <span>excited just watching you.” </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He nudges Langa with his cold, cold hands, and his smile is just as sad as it is genuine.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>All Langa can do is tell Reki in return; </span>
  <em>
    <span>I want to skate.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>-</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>When Langa makes it back from the convenience store down the road, there’s a package waiting for him by the kitchen table. His mom keeps shooting it conspiratory looks from where she’s scrambling eggs for their lunch, giving it the sort of wide berth you’d normally reserve for an angry, wild animal. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I didn’t know you’d ordered something,” she glances, panicked, towards the photo on the table. Langa can hear her muttering to herself under her breath.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s my skateboard,” Langa swaps his bags for the package, finding it to be a lot heavier than he expected. (</span>
  <em>
    <span>Larger boards mean more weight, but you should feel stable that way- </span>
  </em>
  <span>he recalls Reki explaining to him as they’d picked out the board days beforehand, browsing through models on Langa’s phone screen. He’d been so caught up in his enthusiasm that he’d barely questioned Reki not having a mobile of his own.)</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Skateboard?” The response comes a few seconds late, Nanako staring into the pan full of eggs before she pulls her thoughts together.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Skateboard.” Langa affirms. Perhaps he forgot to mention it earlier- where he’s been spending his time every night, where the bruises and scrapes all over his palms came from. “My friend is teaching me.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>At that, Nanako exhales as if the weight off her shoulders is almost dizzying. When she laughs, it’s a relieved, happy sound, and Langa doesn’t want to remind her that the eggs are still cooking away behind her.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Skateboarding,” shaking her head, Nanako fixes Langa with a pointed stare. “I thought you were being bullied! Or getting into fights! You almost gave your poor mother a heart attack!” </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>If nothing else, the way she kept frowning at Langa across the dinner table makes much more sense now.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Are you enjoying it?” Nanako continues, probing for more information. Langa doesn’t know how to tell her that the eggs are starting to burn. “It can’t be that much different to snowboarding, I imagine.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s hard,” Langa admits, tightening his grip around the board, feeling its edges through the packaging. “Your feet aren’t attached and the center of gravity is different, and the wheels make corners difficult. But you don’t need to wait for it to snow- I could skate to </span>
  <em>
    <span>school </span>
  </em>
  <span>if i wanted- and-”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re really into this already, aren’t you?” The smile on his mom’s face is soft, gentle- the kind of smile she’d worn when Langa told her he’d follow her to Okinawa, if that was where she wanted to go. “I’m glad.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Langa hadn’t realised just how much of Reki’s enthusiasm had clung to him, how </span>
  <em>
    <span>infectious </span>
  </em>
  <span>his love for skating is. As if the patchwork of plasters all over his arms weren’t testimony enough to his refusal to give up.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I haven’t seen you that excited about something in a while.” Nanako smiles. Behind her, the smell of burning food is getting pretty difficult to ignore.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“The eggs-” Langa starts, before the smoke alarm starts wailing.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>-</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The skatepark quickly settles itself into Langa’s usual routine.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He gets home from school, prods at his homework for an hour or two, then once night has fallen he takes the now-familiar path towards the coastline. Some days Langa goes before sundown, when the park is busy and he can actually see where he’s putting his feet- but Reki doesn’t talk much during the daytime. He crushes his own energy down into an occasional laugh and a few noncommittal pointers about balance, and Langa doesn’t like it at all.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>(If his sleep schedule turns on its head completely, then so be it.)</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Reki is a good teacher- Langa always goes home feeling as if he understands a little bit more, and Reki never hesitates to let him know just how </span>
  <em>
    <span>fast </span>
  </em>
  <span>he’s improving too. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“That’s only because you’re teaching me,” Langa puts it as he sees it; Reki is the one responsible. He’s just following the motions.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>They get the basics down, Langa starts skating home instead of walking because the path is mostly straight and he only falls off at corners now, and he doesn’t think he can remember what his legs looked like without bruises on them.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Battle scars,” Reki tells him when Langa asks if </span>
  <em>
    <span>he </span>
  </em>
  <span>fell over so much at first. He pushes up the sleeve of his hoodie to reveal a pale stretch of scar tissue on his forearm, half torn skin and half friction burn. “I tried to do an ollie the third time I got on a board because I was nine and an idiot. You’ll end up covered in them, but at least it shows progress.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Perhaps it’s just Reki’s attempt to placate him about hitting the concrete more often than he stands upright- but Langa takes it to heart anyway.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>-</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“The vending machine gave me two,” the man who skates up to Langa from across the park isn’t Reki. Tall, green hair, one hand extending a bottle of melon soda. Reki halts his explanation of direction control, his hands falling still in his lap. “It seemed like a waste throwing it out, so.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He tosses the extra bottle before Langa can decline the offer. It feels distinctly as if he’s about to get poisoned, or kidnapped, or-</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re pretty dedicated,” The man cracks open his own soda, pushing his skateboard back and forth absentmindedly beneath his foot. “I see you practicing down here by yourself almost every night while I’m walking home.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>That’s not right at all.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Langa frowns and goes to tell him that</span>
  <em>
    <span> Reki is right here, what are you talking about, I’ve never been by myself- </span>
  </em>
  <span>but a cold, quiet hand on his shoulder is enough to stop him in his tracks. There’s nothing Langa can do to stop the shiver that travels down his spine, and the man with the soda gives him an odd look.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I just like skating,” Langa manages to say. The statement falls flat, but it’s seemingly enough to placate the other skateboarder into packing up his things and leaving for the night. Maybe he feels the same- or maybe he can tell when something is not right at all.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I can explain-” Reki starts as soon as they’re alone again, withdrawing his hand from Langa’s shoulder like he’s touched an open flame.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Please do,” though Langa’s voice catches half-way up his throat, he’s more </span>
  <em>
    <span>confused </span>
  </em>
  <span>than angry. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Because in a way, it makes sense- the way they only meet at night, the way Reki’s knuckles brush cold as ice when he sticks bandages to the scrapes on Langa’s face, the way he only ever looks half-real under the sun. Even the small things; borrowing Langa’s phone, talking fast and out-of-practice, dodging all of Langa’s offers to share lukewarm drinks from the broken vending machine. Horrifying as it is, it </span>
  <em>
    <span>fits.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>When Reki laughs, it sounds half empty, all sad and hollowed-out. “Didn’t you hear people saying that the skatepark by the sea is haunted?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re-” Langa doesn’t finish; he doesn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>want </span>
  </em>
  <span>to put it into words, not when it falls so close to home. (</span>
  <em>
    <span>I’m just going out for a bit, I’ll be back before dinner. Did you know that the skatepark is haunted?</span>
  </em>
  <span>)</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t know,” Reki pulls his knees into his chest defensively. “I mean- ghosts aren’t real, right? I can’t remember dying, so there has to be </span>
  <em>
    <span>something</span>
  </em>
  <span>-”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>If he continues, then Langa doesn’t hear him over the rush of his heartbeat in his ears. The sunset feels cold, though summer creeps closer by the day.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re the first person that could see me, for some reason,” when Langa tunes back in, Reki is watching him closely, trying to gauge his reaction. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I kept telling myself I was going to let you know, but then you wanted to skateboard, and you started getting real good at it, and then you told me all that stuff about your dad so I couldn’t just-” Reki takes a deep, shuddering breath. It’s such a human sound that Langa doesn’t know if he can believe in ghosts either. “Please don’t stop skateboarding. Even if you don’t want to come back here.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t want to stop skating with you,” feelings are a difficult hurdle to cross, so Langa sticks with what he knows. He likes skateboarding. He likes Reki because Reki also likes skateboarding. (He likes Reki for other reasons too, ones he’s not yet willing to look in the eye.) “Anyway, ghosts aren’t real.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Exactly,” when Reki replies, his laughter sounds dizzy with relief. “It’s a stupid idea. I’m disorganised, but I’m not dumb enough to forget something like dying.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>And, despite himself, Langa laughs in return.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>-</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Ghosts are not only rooted in the supernatural- and Langa has known his fair share of them. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>A classmate he once did a group project with died when he was in middle school, and his twitter account still sits there, stuck in the autumn of 2017. He’s got a tiny scar on his leg, a permanent reminder of his old pet dog and her habit of biting ankles. His dad’s face still smiles out of every bookshelf in the apartment, because Nanako always says that it’ll hurt more if they try to pretend he was never there at all.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Ghosts are abstract things; memories and what-could-have-beens.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Langa is certain that Reki can’t be one of them.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>-</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It keeps him up at night.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>-</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Nothing really changes. Reki still sprawls on top of one of the ramps, counting out a rhythm as Langa swerves to avoid the obstacle course he’s made out of rocks and traffic cones, yet to make it to the end without falling. His eyes are still narrowed, curious.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“The board’s still giving you problems, isn’t it?” He hops down from the ramp. “Would it make you feel safer if you had something to keep your feet in place?” </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Langa didn’t know that was even </span>
  <em>
    <span>allowed. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Reki seems enthusiastic about the idea though, so he nods.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I used to modify boards in my spare time- made this one all by myself!” Reki continues, holding up his own skateboard with a flourish. “If you could go to my house and get me my stuff, then I could probably fix something up for you.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The reality of Reki’s request kicks in only heartbeats before Langa makes the mistake of agreeing. “You want me to break into your house?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Of course not,” Reki waves it off, grinning. “My mom is super friendly- just tell her you’re a classmate and you need to get back something I borrowed from you. She’ll believe you right away.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Langa blinks. The horror must be visible on his face, because Reki nudges him in the shoulder encouragingly.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to,” he avoids Langa’s gaze, staring down at his feet instead. “I just don’t want you to feel like you have to unlearn all of your snowboarding experience. It’d be better if you got to use it, rather than letting it become something that trips you up every time.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The hammer of Langa’s heart in his ears is loud, louder than it should ever be, louder than the waves ushering themselves into shore as the tide pulls in for the evening.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>So, the next afternoon, he finds himself at the door to Reki’s house.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It’s a large sprawling building made for an entire family, with kawara roof tiles and red flowers in the garden that bob their heads along to the coastal breeze. The air tastes like sea salt as Langa walks up the path and raises a fist to knock at the front door. Reki had given him a substantial list of things to collect- tools and bits of equipment Langa has never even heard of before- and even though he’s technically not </span>
  <em>
    <span>stealing, </span>
  </em>
  <span>it doesn’t feel far from it.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Hello?” The door opens to the sight of a woman who shares Reki’s eyes; a flour-covered apron tied around her waist and her sleeves rolled up to her elbows. She takes in Langa’s uniform, and her face splits into a smile that’s a little more weathered than Reki’s, but summer-bright all the same. “You must be a classmate of Reki’s.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It crosses Langa’s mind briefly that he never asked Reki which school he attended. He nods, dreading to think what excuse he could have given otherwise. “He borrowed some books from me a while ago, and I need them back.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“That boy,” the woman- Reki’s mom, Langa assumes- shakes her head fondly, then motions for Langa to step inside after her. “Come in- I’ll show you to his room.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It quickly becomes apparent that Reki wasn’t lying when he said his mom was friendly. She waits patiently for Langa to slip his shoes off in the genkan, then ushers him down a well-lit corridor to a room at the heart of the house. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Kyan Masae- she introduces herself as they walk. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Welcome, take as much time as you need, would you like some cake?</span>
  </em>
  <span> It’s a little overwhelming, but it’s comforting too, knowing that there’s a warm place just up the hill for Reki to return to.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Shout if you need anything,” Masae tells him, then disappears back down the corridor.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Even without the faded stickers plastered all over the door, there would be no mistaking the room for anything other than Reki’s. It’s a place frozen in time exactly how he must have left it- bed unmade, clothes tossed on the floor, sheets of homework laid out on his desk, unfinished. There’s a skating magazine bookmarked on the floor next to his bed, a half-made board propped up against the wall, a rubiks cube with only the orange face completed. Tiny things that Reki never got to finish.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It makes Langa’s chest ache as if his ribs have been bruised black and blue- a hollow, overwhelming emotion that almost brings him to his knees in the middle of the silent bedroom. He contemplates leaving, scrambling down the homemade ramp leading from the window to the road outside, so he doesn’t have to face what he’s been avoiding since he first learned that Reki isn’t all there anymore.  </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Instead he pulls up Reki’s list on his phone and starts searching, rifling through the drawers for travel toolkits, spare wheels, the whole works. Langa just hopes it’ll all fit inconspicuously into his schoolbag.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He reaches the end of the list and, on an afterthought, grabs the skating magazine too. It’s not even that old of an issue, dated from the previous month- a week before Langa arrived in Okinawa. He wonders, then, just how long Reki has been absent from home for.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Masae is waiting for Langa when he resurfaces and slides Reki’s door shut behind him, the smell of freshly-baked cake following her out of the kitchen. There’s a toddler clinging to the edge of her skirt, and Langa can feel himself sweating under the way she stares unblinking up at him. He’s never been good with children.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Did you find what you were looking for?” Masae asks. She seems to catch his discomfort, and sends the toddler back into the kitchen with a pat on the shoulder.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I did.” Langa nods, and hopes he sounds as grateful as he feels. “Thank you for letting me look.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Don’t worry about it,” As she sees Langa out of the front door, Masae smiles warmly. “It’s the least I can do when Reki is always causing trouble for people. Let’s hope he can get back to it soon enough.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>-</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The sun is half-mast in the sky by the time Langa makes it to the park, jogging through the treeline to catch the sight of Reki taking leaps at a traffic cone- the same way he did when Langa first saw him. He always looks brightest when he skates, joy written all over his face. Langa would be happy to stand by the perimeter and watch for a while longer, but Reki spins to a halt no sooner than he catches sight of him, his momentum cut short.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Langa!” He calls, waving enthusiastically. “Mission success?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Mission success.” Langa affirms, unable to hold back a smile of his own as he unloads his bag onto the ground. “Does your mom try to feed everyone who comes by your house?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh god,” Reki buries his face in his hands. “You’d think a family of five would be enough for her, but she keeps feeding the neighbors- and the stray cats around the back too. I should have warned you in advance.” As despairing as he sounds, there’s still something fond in the way Reki talks, something that sounds like </span>
  <em>
    <span>family.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I just regret not accepting the cake,” Langa sighs, digging through the tools and spare wheels in his bag to see if he can uncover a snack of some sort. Even the squashed cereal bar he lost in there days ago would work.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Langa’s hand brushes against the magazine he grabbed on impulse, and he startles enough for Reki to notice. “What’s up?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I found this in your room,” He hands it over before he can bring himself to have second thoughts, watching as Reki flips wordlessly through images of boards and underlined instructions on tricks to attempt. “It was bookmarked so I thought-”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Langa realises, belatedly, that Reki is hugging him. His cold arms fit lock-and-key around his shoulders, the sweep of his hair tickling against Langa’s neck as he exhales lightly into the shoulder of his school uniform. He pulls away before Langa even has the chance to puppeteer his arms into returning the favour.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Sorry,” Reki laughs, sheepish. “Should have asked first.” </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Shaking his head firmly, Langa tugs on his wrist, pulls him back in. “I don’t mind, Reki.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>They don’t skate much, that night. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Instead; Reki scans through the pages of the magazine, showing off the boards he’d want to try if he had the money, the interview in the middle with a skater he’s admired since middle school, the sticker design he’d doodled absentmindedly on the back. The flash-flood of his enthusiasm for every aspect of skating sweeps Langa off his feet right alongside him, and he finds himself grinning till his mouth hurts at just how </span>
  <em>
    <span>large </span>
  </em>
  <span>the world suddenly feels.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I can’t wait to get your board finished,” Reki tells him over a youtube compilation of Olympic hopeful Chinen Miya’s best tricks. “Then we can skate together properly. You haven’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>lived </span>
  </em>
  <span>until you’ve done a slide from the top of the multistorey car park to the bottom.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Sounds dangerous.” Langa replies. He can’t wait.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>-</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>(It’s not till later that night when Masae’s words catch up to Langa in their entirety- </span>
  <em>
    <span>Let’s hope he can get back to it soon enough.)</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>-</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The new board changes everything.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>To say it’s perfect would be a drastic understatement- Langa no longer feels as if he’s going to take a faceful of concrete every five seconds, and corners are a non-issue because Reki did something to the wheels which lets him glide around effortlessly. He nails his first </span>
  <em>
    <span>proper </span>
  </em>
  <span>ollie beneath the floodlights, and Reki shakes him back and forth until he’s dizzy.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>To say Langa falls even more in love with skateboarding would be an understatement too.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It’s all-consuming, the thrill of slipping out of the front door in the early hours of the morning to cruise around the streets with Reki. Langa spends all of his spare cash on 24-hour convenience store food, and then sits by the water as the sun rises and catches golden in the strands of Reki’s hair. He doesn’t want to know how he must look to anyone who passes by; staring off to the side when there’s an entire rose-gold sunrise in front of him.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>(</span>
  <em>
    <span>If you noticed him- </span>
  </em>
  <span>Langa wants to say, wants to stand upon the railing and shout it across the entire park- </span>
  <em>
    <span>then you wouldn’t look at the sunrise either. </span>
  </em>
  <span>He doesn’t- because that’d be embarrassing, and overstated confessions like that only work in movies.)</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Langa isn’t sure if he likes Reki because he taught him how to skate, or if he likes to skate because it was Reki who showed him how. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>(Though, when Langa hops on his board on his way back from school and his heart doesn’t beat fast fast </span>
  <em>
    <span>fast</span>
  </em>
  <span>- even when he follows the same paths that he and Reki take by a storm at night- he thinks he’s beginning to figure out the answer.)</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>-</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Mom,” Nanako drops half a potato into her lap when Langa speaks, unexpectedly. He doesn’t continue until she’s had time to calm down, to go through her usual routine of monologuing under her breath and pretending nobody can hear her. “How do you know that you like someone?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Nanako’s eyes go almost comically wide. “As in- romantic-like? Or just friend-like?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Langa feels as if he’s back in elementary school, engaging in playground talk of all things. Still, there’s nobody else he can ask. He weighs up his options. “Romantic-like.” He confirms.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Nanako brightens up visibly at that, sitting a little straighter in her chair, a smile spreading across her face. She’s always at her happiest when Langa asks her for advice or confides in her. Langa nudges a piece of carrot around the edge of his plate while he waits for her to get over her initial surprise-happiness-excitement.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s not really something you just </span>
  <em>
    <span>know,</span>
  </em>
  <span>” Nanako replies eventually. From the nostalgic edge to her voice, Langa suspects that she’s speaking from experience, pulling up memories gently by the roots. “You start noticing little things: the stuff they get excited about, their nervous habits, the fact that you want to go along with all their ideas- no matter how stupid they are. It’s a slow process.” </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Langa stares intently into the remainder of his dinner. He already notices the things Reki gets excited about, and he definitely goes along with his stupid ideas too. He’s got plasters on both hands as testimony to that.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“That was a bit cheesy, wasn’t it?” Nanako shakes her head with an embarrassed laugh. “Getting romance advice from your mom must feel pretty lame.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>There’s a long pause, in which Langa internally catalogues all of the ornaments on the shelf by the table. One of the snowboard miniatures is off-kilter, perhaps he should-</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“So, are you going to tell me who this is all about?” Nanako teases.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Langa shovels a piece of broccoli into his mouth, and doesn’t say a word.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>-</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The storm warning that comes with the beginning of May is not unexpected- Nanako has given ample warning of just how bad the rain can get, spinning cautionary tales about broken umbrellas and hiding under bus shelters on the way to school. Dark, foreboding clouds gather in the sky by early evening, and if it wasn’t for Reki’s promise to show him a new skating route he overheard news of, then Langa would have stayed safely indoors.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Taking risks has become like second nature, lately.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The sea is already a grey, heaving monster by the time Langa makes it to the skatepark, more restless than he’s ever seen it before. Static snaps in the air all around, filling it with the taste of saltwater and ozone. Still, Reki is waiting for him, practicing flip tricks where he stands by the entrance to the park. He grins electric-bright when he spots Langa approaching, raising a hand to bump their fists together in greeting.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Ready?” Reki questions, as if he even has to ask.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The route they take brings them close enough to the sea that Langa can feel the spray on his face as the storm kicks it into a frenzy. It’s thrilling in a whole new sort of way, feeling impossibly small below the rolling clouds as the whole world is stained angry grey, aside from the pinprick of Reki’s bright hair skating in front of him. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The route is deserted aside from them even though it’s only just turned night, their only company the occasional car rushing by too fast to notice a boy and a not-ghost skating towards the storm. Langa hears each crash of the waves, each </span>
  <em>
    <span>clang </span>
  </em>
  <span>as Reki hops up and slides his board along the railing, each rumble of thunder as the clouds loom overhead. His hair feels sticky with the humidity and he knows for a fact that he’ll be uncomfortable later, but the rush of the wind against his face is worth it.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Langa doesn’t know how anyone could just sit inside, waiting for the storm to break.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Reki!” Langa calls, picking up the pace as he spots </span>
  <em>
    <span>sand </span>
  </em>
  <span>stretching out before him. “Reki, there’s a beach!” </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Wait-” Reki’s reply is swept away by the wind as Langa flies past him, dropping his weight lower to minimise resistance. There’s no clear path down to the beach- but there </span>
  <em>
    <span>is</span>
  </em>
  <span> a staircase with a steep railing and that’s the </span>
  <em>
    <span>thing </span>
  </em>
  <span>about skateboarding. You can go anywhere.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He veers to the left, the thunder echoes between his ribs, and Langa puts his board to good use.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The gap halfway down takes him by surprise, but it’s nothing Langa can’t deal with. There was a broken rail at the place he used to snowboard which nobody ever got around to fixing- something his dad taught him to maneuver around before he even set foot in the terrain park. Langa bridges the gap, and hops off his board into the sand below. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Reki doesn’t follow. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>When Langa turns to face him, he’s still standing breathlessly at the top of the stairs, staring down at Langa with an expression that he doesn’t know how to read. The distance between them feels too wide, filled with static.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I can’t-” Reki starts, his voice carried away by the crash of the waves. When he tucks his board under one arm and walks down the stairs to join Langa it doesn’t feel right- to see him so stationary, so overshadowed. A heavy ball of dread starts to form in the pit of his stomach.  </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“What’s wrong?” Langa jogs over to meet Reki at the bottom, the sand slippery and </span>
  <em>
    <span>strange </span>
  </em>
  <span>below his feet. By the time he catches his balance, that weird, impossible expression has slid off Reki’s face entirely.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m fine- just tired,” </span>
  <em>
    <span>He’s smiling again- </span>
  </em>
  <span>Langa thinks, letting the worry ease out of his limbs. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Reki wouldn’t lie about stuff like that. </span>
  </em>
  <span>“I swear you get more amazing every time I see you. What is your mom </span>
  <em>
    <span>feeding </span>
  </em>
  <span>you?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Lots of omurice,” easy answer- his mom has been on a kick lately after finding what she claims to be the perfect recipe. For some reason, the reply makes Reki double over with laughter, fire-bright in the wake of the storm. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>They sit on their boards to avoid getting sand in their pockets, and entertain themselves by watching the waves batter themself against the coastline. It’s not much of a beach- tiny and washed out in the darkness- but Langa still hasn’t quite wrapped his head around the expanse of the water, the feeling of the sand as he lets it run between his fingertips. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I think it’s going to blow your mind when we get to go to a </span>
  <em>
    <span>proper </span>
  </em>
  <span>beach,” Reki nudges him gently in the arm. His smile slips out of place a little. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>If </span>
  </em>
  <span>we get to go.” He corrects.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It brings Masae’s words back to the forefront of Langa’s mind- </span>
  <em>
    <span>let’s hope he can get back to it soon enough.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I know you don’t remember dying,” the words escape before Langa can think them over properly, sitting on the sand in front of them like some ugly, dead jellyfish. Langa feels like the fool who prods it with a stick, and gets stung all over. “But what’s the last thing you </span>
  <em>
    <span>do </span>
  </em>
  <span>remember?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Reki leans back, his line of sight tipped up towards the stormclouds. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Skating,” he replies, like the answer is obvious. “What else would it be?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>There’s a long, weighted pause before he continues. “There’s an abandoned mine up in the hills where people sometimes go to skate. Apparently you can’t call yourself a proper skater around here until you’ve made it from the top to the bottom. I tried. I tried so many times, but every time I-”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Langa reaches a hand out hesitantly and slips his fingers between Reki’s own. Reki squeezes back, palm to cold palm.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I fell. I Hit my head on a rock and when I woke up, it was like I didn’t exist any more,” he turns to face Langa, swallowing back what must be tears. Langa hates that all he can think is how pretty Reki still looks, how glad he is that he stumbled across the skatepark that night, how neatly their fingers fit together. “You were the first-”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Overhead, the storm breaks.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
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  <span>“Shit!” Langa gasps as the clouds split open and cold water runs down the back of his neck, drenching him in seconds. The rain doesn’t affect Reki in the same way, but he still throws his arms over his head, acting on instinct. Langa stares down at his hands, watches as the raindrops slide over the scrapes, the new calluses, the places their fingers interlocked just seconds before.</span>
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<p>
  <span>“Langa!” Reki shouts from the bottom of the stairs, his skateboard held close to his chest. “Come on!”</span>
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  <span>Together, they run through the storm.</span>
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<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Langa doesn’t want to experience that again. He doesn’t want walking through the park to feel like treading on gravestones. A lifetime of <i>just friends</i> and meeting only by nightfall sounds worlds better than the thought of reaching the summit and standing there alone. (He’s already tasted it once in the middle of the storm-surge- Reki stood at the top of the stairs saying <i>I can’t I can’t I can’t.</i>)</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>fueled by episode 10 + the fact that it gave me enough energy to last a month at Least<br/>heads up for some brief oc appearances in this chapter because I needed them for plot purposes</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sometimes, Langa skates with other people. </p><p> </p><p>There’s a handful of regulars who show up to the park a few times a week- all with different techniques, different talents for him to drink up and learn from. Some of them challenge Langa to races on the promenade that runs parallel to the water- tests of speed that leave him breathless and desperate to win.</p><p> </p><p>Climbing high above the clouds is fun, because Langa is confident that, whenever he looks over his shoulder, Reki will be right behind him. He’s brilliant like that; with his eyes that see everything, his hands that fix anything, the easy way he scooped up the embers left in Langa’s chest, and nursed them into a bonfire. </p><p> </p><p>Loving to skate was an inevitability. Loving Reki was just as certain. (He’s figured that out, by now.)</p><p> </p><p>Even if Reki doesn’t feel the same sort of <em> love- </em>Langa will settle for the way he watches him as he flies. </p><p> </p><p>(Awestruck; like he’s a snowstorm in summertime, falling over Okinawa.)</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>Langa knows his mom’s internal monologues when he sees them. </p><p> </p><p>She’s never subtle about it, pulling weird faces into her dinner and muttering away to herself, glancing cagily around the kitchen. Langa focuses on his plate, bracing himself for the question or attempt at conversation or bizarre piece of life advice she’ll eventually conjure up. He loves his mom- she has the patience of a saint and an easygoing demeanor to match- but sometimes she acts like she’d rather run around the whole track backwards, than face one hurdle head-on.</p><p> </p><p>Langa asks <em> what? </em> in the same instance that Nanako asks <em> don’t you ever feel like inviting a friend over? </em></p><p> </p><p>Her expression is warm and encouraging as she waits for Langa to respond. Treading carefully, like usual.</p><p> </p><p>Perhaps it’s true that Langa is not particularly close to anyone in his class, but that’s just because he’s got Reki to fill that role. He’s raised the bar too high- Langa doesn’t think anyone ever has or ever <em> will </em> come close. </p><p> </p><p>“Do you think I haven’t made friends yet?” He frowns.</p><p> </p><p>“Of course not!” Wide-eyed with surprise, Nanako backpedals <em> hard. </em>“That’s not what I meant. I was just thinking, well, you’re always hanging out with that skateboarder friend of yours-”</p><p> </p><p>“Reki.” Langa corrects her.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re always hanging out with Reki- so I wanted to make sure that you know you’re welcome to invite him over,” his mom calms herself down enough to smile at him quietly. “I’m willing to turn a blind eye to the fact that you’re sneaking out at night, but I’d at least like to meet whoever it is that got you to feel excited about something again.”</p><p> </p><p>She looks practically thrilled by the concept, and Langa feels <em> terrible. </em></p><p> </p><p>Because something as simple as <em> inviting Reki over for dinner </em>is impossible as a snowstorm breaking over the beach. </p><p> </p><p>The place he and Reki have carved out by the sea exists only at night, only outside, only for the two of them. Everywhere else- Langa is just a boy practicing tricks by himself, cruising through the streets alone, talking to an empty space beside him. When Reki laughs at his side like a forest fire, full of warmth and too large to fit in his chest without it escaping, Langa is the only one who hears it.</p><p> </p><p>(It’s not <em> fair- </em>he’s thought, more than once- that he’s the only one who gets to watch Reki skate.)</p><p> </p><p>Nanako seems to notice something is wrong, but she doesn’t push further when Langa gives a noncommittal ‘<em> I’ll ask him’ </em>in response. </p><p> </p><p>It sinks in after dinner, while Langa sits in his room and wills the rain outside to ease up, that maybe one day Reki won’t exist for him either. The realisation comes like a punch to the gut- vicious and painful and unavoidable- that the hole in his chest could come back and swallow him whole, because Reki won’t be running beside him any more.</p><p> </p><p>Langa remembers the first time he tried to snowboard <em> after, </em>stood at the top of the slope as the meltwater clung to his hair and chilled him till his hands turned numb. He fell over backwards in the snow and let the sun burn black holes into his vision, until someone rushed over in a panic because they thought some kid had dropped dead on the slope.</p><p> </p><p>He doesn’t want to experience that again. He doesn’t want walking through the park to feel like treading on gravestones. A lifetime of <em> just friends </em> and meeting only by nightfall sounds worlds better than the thought of reaching the summit and standing there alone. (He’s already tasted it once in the middle of the storm-surge- Reki stood at the top of the stairs saying <em> I can’t I can’t I can’t. </em>)</p><p> </p><p>Caught in the light of his laptop screen, Langa wonders if he’s setting himself up to fall. The rain outside rattles against his window and catches the reflection of the car headlights- a steady rhythm that keeps Langa’s breathing even, if nothing else. He backspaces through an entire paragraph of his literature homework.</p><p> </p><p>His mom is busy watching a movie on the TV when Langa slips back into the living room and sits quietly beside her. She makes no attempt to hide the surprise on her face, but she doesn’t ask questions either- shifting her legs to give Langa some more space.</p><p> </p><p>He stares at the screen for a while, not taking a single second of it in, before he lets out a breath he didn’t realise he was holding. </p><p> </p><p>“Do you believe in ghosts?” he asks.</p><p> </p><p>Without saying a word, Nanako pauses the movie.</p><p> </p><p>She doesn’t respond for a very long time- aware of the fact that it’s not the sort of question Langa would ask as a poorly-timed joke. He’s being serious, and so she handles it as such.</p><p> </p><p>The clock on the living room wall has never sounded so loud.</p><p> </p><p>“I think I do,” When Nanako replies, she does so carefully. “Not in a <em> haunted-house ghostbusters </em>kind of way- but it’s nice to believe that people can’t exist without leaving evidence of it behind.”</p><p> </p><p>Langa frowns in confusion, and his mom takes it as a cue to continue.</p><p> </p><p>“There’s a tree in the park that I carved my name into when I was your age,” she laughs at the memory, some fond reminder of a time when she was a little younger, a little more rebellious. “I went to look for it, and it’s still there after all this time. Even if we stayed in Canada, it wouldn’t have gone anywhere. That’s what a ghost is, I think.”</p><p> </p><p>She reaches down and pats the back of Langa’s hand gently. “You have your dad’s eye colour. He used to sneak out of the back door at stupid-o-clock in the morning to go snowboarding before it got busy- and you’re not much better. I can see little bits of him in you- things that other people wouldn’t notice- but it still makes me so happy.”</p><p> </p><p>The ball of <em> feelings </em>swells until it’s as heavy as lead, and Langa tries his best to swallow it down. There’s too many things in there for him to unravel, too many loose ends to trip over. His mom squeezes his hand comfortingly, like she used to do when he was a kid and the world felt too large around him.</p><p> </p><p>“You don’t have to pretend that you understand that,” Nanako smiles sheepishly. “I mean, most people would just walk past that tree in the park and see a vandal with a pocket knife and too much time on her hands. But it’s reassuring to me- that even if we’re not around any more, there’s at least one person who’ll notice the stuff that got left behind.”</p><p> </p><p>When Langa offers a <em> thank you </em>in return, it doesn’t feel like it’s enough.</p><p> </p><p>“Do you want to talk more?” There’s no obligation in his mom’s offer, no pressure to reply. She leaves all the escape routes open. “Or should I press play?”</p><p> </p><p>“You can keep watching,” Langa curls his knees into his chest, lets his head fall against the back of the sofa. The soundtrack on the TV screen soars back into life, and he lets it carry him away into sleep.</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>Word starts to get around that there’s a skater who frequents the coastal park, who will accept any challenge thrown his way. Langa doesn’t notice the attention until Reki points it out to him, grabbing him by his collar and telling him to <em> stop saying yes to everything- for the love of- </em></p><p> </p><p>It’s become a catchphrase of his, almost- near pulling out his hair every time Langa agrees to a race because skating is something he just can’t get enough of. The more people he races, the faster his heart beats, the closer he gets towards skimming the sun with his outstretched hands. With the board Reki made for him, he feels <em> invincible.  </em></p><p> </p><p>He hasn’t lost a race yet, but the thrill of it all never gets tiring. Langa wants to find out just how far he can fly.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re a genius,” Reki tells him once from where he stands by the water, backlit by the sun. Langa can’t see his eyes, and the way his mouth twists around the phrase sounds <em> all wrong. </em>“A goddamn genius.”</p><p> </p><p>By the time a cloud passes across the sun, Reki’s kilowatt smile is back, and Langa is left wondering if he imagined his uneasiness in the first place.</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>Saturday rolls around, and Langa wakes up at lunch time to another storm warning on the news; the air sweeping in through the kitchen window already thick with humidity. </p><p> </p><p>“It’s not set to break till tonight,” Nanako advises when she catches him deliberating over the skateboard that’s taken up permanent residence by the door. “As long as you’re not planning to stay out late, then you should be fine.”</p><p> </p><p>Langa flashes her a grateful smile, and hurries out of the door.</p><p> </p><p>The static-charged skyline seems to have a universal effect on the city- the skatepark is busier than Langa has seen it in a long while, people lured outside by the taste of ozone in the air. Reki is there too, although that’s a given- sat cross-legged on one of the ramps as other skaters nearly clip the top of his head with their wheels. </p><p> </p><p>He doesn’t return the wave Langa shoots in his direction. It’s a small thing, but it <em> hurts. </em></p><p> </p><p>Langa doesn’t have time to dwell on it though, as one of the skaters catches his eye and waves back. Mizue- if Langa remembers her name correctly. Tall and wickedly fast, someone who has given him a run for his money in races along the seafront more than once.</p><p> </p><p>“Kid!” She calls across the park, turning more than a few heads. “Give me a rematch. I’ll buy you a burger if you win again.”</p><p> </p><p>“Two burgers.” Langa bargains, but he tosses his bag to the side in anticipation anyway. From where he watches at the top of the ramp, Reki feels further away than he should- and Langa just hopes he’ll start smiling at him again when he wins. The burgers will just be a bonus.</p><p> </p><p>Though the distance in Reki’s eyes follows Langa down the path like a haunting, racing against Mizue is still <em> fun. </em>Langa’s heart still pounds in his chest because Mizue skates dirty and pushes him to his limits, using the cityscape to its full potential in a way that speaks volumes of her experience. Langa makes a note to ask Reki how to swing around street lamps and scale walls in the way that real skaters do. There’s only so much that years of snow at his feet can prepare him for. </p><p> </p><p>Langa wins, but only by a margin. Half his speed on the straighter roads and half Mizue’s bad luck- hitting a loose paving stone just meters before their makeshift finish line and almost taking a mouthful of concrete. She claps a hand against Langa’s shoulder, breathless.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay, you won that one,” she sighs. “Please choose the least expensive fast food place you can think of.”</p><p> </p><p>Langa goes to ask if the burgers can wait- that he wants to tell Reki he <em> won </em>first, just to see him flash his teeth in a storm-bright grin again. But his stomach answers for him, a loud growl that sends Mizue into a fit of laughter.</p><p> </p><p>“God, you’re making <em> me </em>hungry now,” she laughs, picking up her skateboard. “Let’s get moving.”</p><p> </p><p>By the time Langa makes it back to the skatepark, Reki has relocated even further away, propped up against the railing, frowning out to sea like he’s deep in thought. </p><p> </p><p>Langa doesn’t get the chance to approach him before he’s interrupted by a tap on the shoulder, a ‘<em> can you show off that snowboarding move- my friend doesn’t believe that you can do it.’ </em></p><p> </p><p>Saying no to a challenge has never been in Langa’s nature, and so he agrees.</p><p> </p><p>By the time Langa makes it to where Reki still sits with his back to the water, the sky is heavy and dark with clouds- the storm so close to breaking that the park lies empty once more. Langa makes no effort to lower his voice as he yells a greeting, hopeful that he and Reki will get to skate together a little while, before the sky opens up.</p><p> </p><p>“Reki!” He calls, like clockwork, like always. “I won a load of stuff today- did you see-”</p><p> </p><p>“I saw.” The tone of Reki’s voice is vacant and terrible and <em> wrong, </em>enough so that Langa almost flinches where he stands. </p><p> </p><p>“Are you okay?” He starts, hesitant.</p><p> </p><p>Reki cuts him off again. If he stares closely, Langa can almost see the waves through him, tossing and breaking themselves against the shore. He’s never looked more absent, more like a ghost. “Don’t you think it’s time you stopped this?”</p><p> </p><p>Langa stares. He doesn’t want to know what sort of face he must be making- wide-eyed, horrified. Reki continues.</p><p> </p><p>“I mean, you’ve got people to skate with now. People you can race in the middle of the day, who can show you off to their friends, who can buy you shitty melon soda from the vending machine when you pull off the trick you’ve been working on for days,” his voice gets louder and more desperate with each word, and Langa isn’t sure if he should step in or sit back and take it. All he can think is <em> how long </em> and <em> why now </em> and <em> just how much have I missed?  </em></p><p> </p><p>“Reki-” he tries, only to find that he doesn’t have a single clue of what to say.</p><p> </p><p>“People are already suggesting you might be good enough to go pro if you keep at it,” All the fight drains out of Reki’s voice, giving way to something that’s almost unbearable to listen to. He doesn’t sound like Reki, any more. “It makes sense for you to stop wasting time on someone who might not be alive.” </p><p> </p><p>“But- you’re the one that made my board for me-” the way Reki whirls around in response is enough to tell Langa that he’s breached a very fragile line with all the grace of an avalanche. <em> The wrong thing to say </em>is becoming his speciality.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah,” Reki’s response is so quiet that the sea almost swallows it up. “I want to <em> skate </em>, but I can’t even do that now, can I?”</p><p> </p><p>Langa wants to tell Reki that’s not what he meant- that his heart had been still in his chest until Reki had coaxed all four chambers back into life. That his board is special because <em> Reki </em> made it- not because it has fancy wheels or clips to keep his feet in place. That it’s never <em> just </em>been about skateboarding- although maybe this is the worst possible time for Langa to realise it. </p><p> </p><p>But the roadblock between his heart and his head is three meters wide and impossible to jump across- so Langa just stares and stares and stares.</p><p> </p><p>(He’s never been good at these things. These feelings.)</p><p> </p><p>“You should go home before the rain starts,” Reki tells him, and then he’s gone.</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>The storm continues through the night and into the following day- a downpour that gives Langa all too much time to dwell on the previous evening. He thinks he must have every single crack in his bedroom ceiling memorised by the time his mom knocks on the door to ask if he wants lunch- after an hour of staring upwards, looping Reki’s words around in his head like a stuck record. Focusing in on the shake of Reki’s hands, the washed out gold of his eyes, the feeling of standing up to his knees in loose, unrelenting snow.</p><p> </p><p>All Langa knows: things always turn out better the second time around. It’s hard to land a trick on the first attempt.</p><p> </p><p>He’s in such a hurry to get out of the front door that he forgets to grab an umbrella. A problem for a future version of himself, who has less important issues to deal with.</p><p> </p><p>The park is predictably quiet when Langa arrives, but Reki is nowhere to be seen either. No amount of shouting is enough to lure him out- Langa can’t even find his skateboard stashed in its usual hiding place beneath one of the ramps. He’s struck by a brief moment of fear, as rain slides down the back of his collar, that maybe Reki has disappeared for good. Langa crushes the thought deep, deep down; before it can consume him.</p><p> </p><p>He tries to think of all the places Reki could go- he’s not by the broken vending machine, he’s not by the seafront, he’s not by the multistorey car park. It’s not cold- May in Okinawa is a forgiving season- but the rain still makes Langa shiver as he traipses down the sidestreets, not quite sure what he’s looking for any more.</p><p> </p><p>He doesn’t realise he’s outside of Reki’s house until a voice calls down the path, and Reki’s mom frowns at him from her shelter beneath the doorway.</p><p> </p><p>“Reki’s friend- Langa, right?” She shouts to make her voice heard across the flower beds. “It’s pouring out there; what are you doing?”</p><p> </p><p>Langa bites his tongue before he can say something stupid.</p><p> </p><p>“Doesn’t matter-” Masae answers for him, beckoning towards the doorway. The house beyond looks just as warm and inviting as it did the first time Langa visited. “Come inside and dry off a bit, you’ll catch a cold if you stand out there any longer.”</p><p> </p><p>Something about her voice tells Langa that she won’t take no for an answer- stubbornness clearly runs in the family- so he follows her wordlessly inside.</p><p> </p><p>“Koyomi, go and grab a towel from the cupboard,” Masae instructs as she leads the way towards the dining room, and Langa catches the edge of a strawberry-print dress disappearing around the corner- another sister, he assumes. “Do you want something warm to drink? We have tea, or I can make up some coffee, or-”</p><p> </p><p>“Tea would be nice,” Langa takes in the decor as he waits- thinking about how his mom would probably have a fit of jealousy over the traditional screen doors, the windows overlooking the garden. “Thanks.”</p><p> </p><p>“Cake too?” Though she poses it like a question, Masae is already half-way through getting a plate out of the cupboard. Langa nods, defeated.</p><p> </p><p>It’s only once he’s sat at the table with a warm towel around his shoulders and a cup of tea in his hands that Langa realises just how freezing he was- though he’s not sure how much of it was the rain, and how much was cold dread at the thought of never seeing Reki again. He follows the path which the raindrops trace down the windows to avoid thinking too hard, tuning out the roll of the thunder and only noticing Masae’s attempts to catch his attention once she settles across the table from him.</p><p> </p><p>“Mind if I join you?” She places her own cup of tea down on the table when Langa nods. For a long while, they sit in silence.</p><p> </p><p>“So-” Masae starts. “How did you and Reki meet? I mean- I’m assuming you were in the same class, but that boy avoids talking about school like it’s the plague.”</p><p> </p><p>“Reki taught me to skateboard,” deciding that it’s a thin line he’s walking, Langa settles with the truth- or something close to it. He doesn’t have the improvisation skills to make up a believable backstory on the spot. “He showed me how to do everything, and even made a board for me. He’s-” <em> amazing. Brilliant. The reason I love to skate. </em></p><p> </p><p>Langa stops. It feels almost wrong to say those things to someone else, when it seems Reki didn’t even know them himself.</p><p> </p><p>“You know, you both get the exact same look on your face when you talk about skating,” Masae’s expression still softens into itself, and Langa tries not to choke on his tea. “All <em> sparkle sparkle. </em>I never understand a word of what Reki is talking about- but he’s pretty brilliant, isn’t he?”</p><p> </p><p>Langa nods again, grateful for Masae’s ability to put words in his mouth for him. Another inherited trait, it seems. “He knows so much about skating- he designed my board just by watching me fall over a load of times, and he’s a really great teacher too.”</p><p> </p><p>When Langa looks up from his tea, Masae is giving him an odd look- one he doesn’t know how to decipher. He goes to backpedal, certain by now that unfamiliar looks are a storm warning on the horizon, but Masae just shakes her head fondly.</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t worry,” she wraps her hands around her cup. “I’m just a little glad to hear you talk about him like he’s still here. Most people have given up already.”</p><p> </p><p>Langa blinks, tries to avoid staring at the rain until his vision goes fuzzy. There’s a moth looping around the kitchen light fitting, back and forth and back again.</p><p> </p><p>“There’s still no obvious reason why he hasn’t woken up yet,” Masae takes his silence as a cue to continue talking, open in a way that Langa wasn’t expecting even from her. “All his physical injuries healed a long while back- it’s as if he’s just not home right now.”</p><p> </p><p>That’s not something which anyone would say about a ghost.</p><p> </p><p><em> He’s alive- </em> Langa thinks, his ribcage filled to the brim with static. <em> Reki’s alive. </em></p><p> </p><p>“It’s a little bit silly, but I think he’s just off doing other things, at the moment,” certainty is a tangible thing in Masae’s voice, and Langa wants to tell her just how <em> right </em>she is. “He’s always been good at getting himself into trouble, but he’s never been one to leave people behind when it really matters. He’ll be back when he’s ready.”</p><p> </p><p>“You, uh-” as much as his newfound hope has turned into a living, breathing creature that follows the moth in its lazy orbit around the dining room, Langa doesn’t know how to deal with such an open conversation. He’s not yet sure if it’s just another cultural difference he has to grow accustomed to, or if it’s simply a Kyan family birthright to live as loud as thunder. Both, perhaps. “You don’t have to tell me this, if you don’t-”</p><p> </p><p>Masae shakes her head. “I’ve already made the mistake of keeping these things to myself,” she talks with a sadness that’s painfully familiar- if Langa closes his eyes, he can almost hear the words in his own mom’s voice. “Sometimes it’s good to share feelings like this. They’ll never go anywhere, otherwise.”</p><p> </p><p>The way she says it- it makes it sound almost simple.</p><p> </p><p>(“More tea?” Masae asks, before Langa can stress himself half to death trying to come up with a response that <em> means </em> something. The offer is clearly a white flag, a <em> don’t worry about it. </em>Langa nods gratefully, and wraps the towel around his shoulders tight.)</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>Reki doesn’t show up the next day, or the day after.</p><p> </p><p>Langa finds his attention in class drifting even more than usual, staring past that empty desk, fidgeting his way through fake skateboard tricks under his desk until the girl in front glares at him venomously. He gets hit in the face during gym class because all he can think about is Reki, the dull look in his eyes, the knowledge that he’s still out there, somewhere. </p><p> </p><p>Langa messed up- that much is certain. The silent treatment is pretty telling. Even though he doesn’t know exactly <em> what </em>went wrong (he always thought it was common knowledge; that the only reason he could stare into the sun was because Reki was there to share the view) Langa remembers Masae’s words loud and clear.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> It’s good to share feelings like this. They’ll never go anywhere, otherwise. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>If Langa sees Reki again (<em> when- </em>he corrects himself firmly, splashing water on his face in the school bathroom) he will stick to what he knows.</p><p> </p><p>Three facts:</p><p>- Skating is fun, but it’s Reki who makes it that way. </p><p>- He wants to apologise, because skating and talking are nothing alike- except for Langa ending up face-first against the concrete in one way or another. </p><p>- He doesn’t even <em>like</em> melon soda, so he doesn’t care if Reki can buy it for him or not.</p><p> </p><p>(A fourth fact; Langa likes Reki so much that it hurts to breathe around him, sometimes. That one, he might keep to himself.)</p><p> </p><p>When Langa skates home from school by himself, he misses the cold.</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>Come Thursday afternoon, Langa finds himself running away from the captain of the baseball team. </p><p> </p><p>What he thought was a friendly study session turned out to be an attempt to indoctrinate him into the team- signup papers and a pen deposited neatly into his hands outside of the library. A cheerful grin, a ‘<em> with your speed, we’d surely make nationals this year’.  </em></p><p> </p><p>Langa doesn’t know how to tell them that he doesn’t have time for baseball, not when he’s already fallen in love with skateboarding. He regrets telling them <em> maybe </em>at the beginning of term, before he knew any better.</p><p> </p><p>So he does the sensible thing: excuses himself to the bathroom, and makes a run for it.</p><p> </p><p>He’s already short on time to search for Reki before he needs to be home for dinner, so Langa ducks into the first classroom he comes across with the lights off, slumping against the door once it slams shut behind him. He’ll wait it out for a little while longer, then slip away unseen. Worst comes to worst, he’s on the ground floor so he can just shimmy out of the window and skate away.</p><p> </p><p>“Here to join the occult club?” Langa swears his heart stops momentarily, as the overhead lights snap on to reveal a person with a choppy bob cut and an off-kilter grin, looming right over the place where Langa sits. He almost smacks his head off the door in shock. </p><p> </p><p>He doesn’t even think to respond before he makes a grab towards the door handle.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m joking,” Bob-cut offers him a hand that’s all bony fingers and black-painted nails. “I saw you running from Tanaka-san. Feel free to hide out here. Not much going on in the way of club activities at the moment.” They gesture to the empty classroom, as if to prove a point.</p><p> </p><p>“Thanks.” Langa remains firmly glued to the wall, something which makes Bob-cut laugh to themself.</p><p> </p><p>“Dude, I’m not gonna bite you. Sit down.” they fall heavily into a chair, kicking at one of the desks opposite them as an invitation. “Turn the light off while you’re over there, though.”</p><p> </p><p>More than a little bit intimidated, Langa does as instructed and picks his way across the classroom by the light of the LED camping lantern that Bob-cut has set up on the desk. (<em> For atmosphere, </em>they explain). He settles gingerly into the chair opposite.</p><p> </p><p>“Rui,” Bob-cut sticks out their hand for Langa to shake it, each movement casting long spider-like shadows across the wall. “Seriously, I’m <em> not </em>going to bite you, stop looking at me like that. Occult club is just a dumb name I came up with as an excuse to hang out in an empty classroom.”</p><p> </p><p>Langa peers down at the books scattered across Rui’s desk, half in English and half in Japanese, all decorated with strange drawings of creatures and objects. “Looks very occult to me.”</p><p> </p><p>Rui laughs properly then; an amused, sharp thing. “You got me there. I just like researching ghosts- paranormal experiences, and all that. Feel free to pretend I’m not here.” </p><p> </p><p>Langa stares at the books as Rui turns back to their reading, the text blurry in the low-light even when he narrows his eyes. Rui seems to have no issues, scanning through the pages with meticulous intent as they twirl a pen between their fingers.</p><p> </p><p>“Can I ask you something?” The question escapes before Langa can even think it through properly.</p><p> </p><p>“Shoot.” Rui doesn’t look up; but their pen falls still, their eyes no longer jumping from one line to the next.</p><p> </p><p>“Can someone be alive, but also a ghost at the same time?” (Really, Langa’s not sure if he wants to know the answer. Not sure which outcome would be worse.)</p><p> </p><p>“You mean Ikiryo?” Rui swivels around in their seat sharply, eyes black and excited in the glow of the LED. Langa doesn’t want to know what sort of confused expression he must be making to prompt the way Rui rolls their eyes at him. “You know- living ghosts?”</p><p> </p><p>They type something into their phone, pulling up a wikipedia article that Langa squints at for a solid minute before giving up. Something about souls, about vengeance. Nothing that sounds remotely like Reki.</p><p> </p><p>“<em> Ikiryo </em> is the idea that a person’s soul can become separate from their body, usually when they’re brought close to death,” Rui leaves their phone face-up on the desk, the blue light cutting harsh shadows out of their already sharp face. “Most folklore states that it’s linked to a need for vengeance, or an unhealthy romantic attachment- but there’s plenty of variation. A need to complete a task, an urge to travel somewhere, wanting to visit a loved one before dying- I’ve experienced that one. There’s also records of people experiencing <em> soul-separation illness, </em>where their consciousness goes walkabout while their physical body is left behind.”</p><p> </p><p>Rui’s words catch up to Langa on a thirty second delay. <em> I’ve experienced that one. I’ve been there, too. </em></p><p> </p><p>“You’ve-” He starts. With a wave of their hand, Rui cuts him off before he can even ask his question.</p><p> </p><p>“I mean, people don’t usually get interested in the supernatural until they’ve witnessed it for themself, y’know?” Their laugh shifts into something more open, and they look, very suddenly, altogether more human. “I swear I saw my grandmother standing in the corner of my room smiling at me, the night before she died. Probably wouldn’t have been that big of a deal- if she hadn’t been bed-bound in hospital for a month beforehand.”</p><p> </p><p>First his mom, then Masae, and now Rui. Sometimes Langa wonders if he’s the strange one, for not being able to speak about these things so clearly, so openly. (Reki never spoke about ghosts and grief and things that ache more than any skateboarding accident- so at least they’ve got each other.)</p><p> </p><p>“You experienced it too, didn’t you?” Treading cautiously, Rui sends him a small, genuine smile. Langa isn’t quite sure which part they’re talking about- the grief, or the paranormal- but he nods either way. It’s strangely cathartic to admit something like that to a stranger, who will likely have forgotten him by the beginning of the second semester.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know if it’s the same for you, but the strangest part is that it made things easier,” Rui continues, rolling their pen across the desk and back again. “The fact that she was smiling, that she was thinking of me even when I didn’t know what to say. Losing someone is pretty fucking painful- but at least it’s not something you carry alone.”</p><p> </p><p>The words ring in Langa’s ears like a bell chime, a snapped guitar string, an echo of thunder. Round and round they go.</p><p> </p><p>He stares dazedly into the LED light.</p><p> </p><p>“Anyway,” Rui claps their hands together sharply to catch Langa’s attention again. “Tanaka-san should have given up by now, so don’t let me keep you any longer than you need. Unless you really do want to join the occult club, and-”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m kind of busy after school,” Langa gathers his things together. “Sorry.”</p><p> </p><p>Rui snorts, reaching out to pat Langa on the shoulder firmly. The warmth of their hands is just enough to convince him that he didn’t dream up their entire conversation. “I figured. Get going- and good luck with your Ikiryo problem.”</p><p> </p><p>Before he does that, Langa has other things to deal with.</p><p> </p><p>As much as he wants to see Reki- to apologise, make promises he plans to keep, tell him that ghosts aren’t real but maybe Ikiryo are- Langa thinks going home is more important. Rui’s words still echo, half painful and half <em> exactly </em>what he needed to hear, a tug on the ball of feelings he’s carried for months too long. Ready to set the whole thing unraveling.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, blue-hair-” before Langa can close the door behind him, Rui calls across the classroom one more time. “The alarm on the fire escape by the gym doesn’t work. You can go out that way.”</p><p> </p><p><em> You’ve got more important things to deal with, haven’t you? </em>their grin says; loud and clear.</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>For the longest time, Langa didn’t know how to feel about his dad’s sudden absence. The empty mountainside, the new apartment, the condolences cards in the mail. Their house back in Canada was filled to the brim with flowers for weeks afterwards, the mantlepiece turned into a veritable shrine. The praise was the strangest part of it all- getting told how well he was handling it, how strong he was being- when really he just didn’t know what to think.</p><p> </p><p>Nobody prepares you to lose something you thought would always be there. If the sun just stopped rising one morning, there wouldn’t be a single person who knew what to say in its absence.</p><p> </p><p>His mom cried a lot, but she also smiled a lot- in the sad, quiet way people do when reminiscing on old memories that will never come back. Langa just swallowed past the ball of lead in his throat, and hung up his snowboarding boots for good.</p><p> </p><p>Then Okinawa. Then skateboarding. Then Rui’s sharp smile and <em> it’s not something you carry alone. </em></p><p> </p><p>Langa has learned a thing or two about grief. He’s starting to understand what it means to look past the empty rooms; that accepting a bouquet and telling a relative that he’s holding up fine doesn’t mean he <em> actually </em>is.</p><p> </p><p>Nanako is penning down a shopping list when Langa stumbles in late through the front door, out of breath and unsteady on his feet. Concern radiates off her immediately- both towards his delayed arrival, and the shaky-handed grip on the doorframe that keeps him upright.</p><p> </p><p>“Mom-” Langa doesn’t cry often, but he doesn’t even make it past a word before his vision starts to swim. The snowflake decals on the splashback twist and melt.</p><p> </p><p>“Langa?” he’s acutely aware of Nanako’s presence at his side, asking silently for permission before she pulls him into a hug. “What’s wrong?”</p><p> </p><p>“I miss dad,” the words come out muffled against his mom’s shoulder, and saying them out loud <em> hurts </em>. “I miss him so much.”</p><p> </p><p>Nanako freezes for a second, then begins to stroke through Langa’s hair like he’s five years old again. </p><p> </p><p>“I miss him too,” she replies; and that’s all the reassurance Langa needs.</p><p> </p><p>This feeling- <em> grief, </em> Langa can put the name to it now- is heavier than the last and infinitely more painful, but he prefers it to the wide, empty space of months beforehand. Hypothermia is at its most dangerous when you stop feeling cold. He clings to his mom’s shirt, hears the way her own breathing hitches like she’s crying too, and wonders if this was what Kyan Masae meant when she said <em> it’s good to share feelings like this, sometimes </em>.</p><p> </p><p>All the while, Nanako’s fingers card through his hair, a reminder that she’s here- that she’s listening.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s not fair,” saying it out loud, childish as it feels, is comforting in a way.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s not,” his mom replies, like a mantra. “It’s not fair at all.”</p><p> </p><p>(It’s not fair- but it’s not something they carry alone.)</p><p> </p><p>When Langa finally pulls away, his throat is so dry that it’s almost painful, and he’s made a mess of his mom’s cardigan- splotchy tearstains left all over her shoulder. Her own eyes are red-rimmed, too. She reaches out with the edge of her sleeve to wipe futilely at Langa’s face. “It feels a bit better once you’ve got it out of your system, doesn’t it?” She offers.</p><p> </p><p>Openness is not something which comes naturally to Langa, but Nanako is right. (She usually is, in one way or another.) If learning to skate brought his heart back to life- then this feels like learning to breathe again.</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>“You know,” Nanako resurfaces from another internal monologue over dinner, as she narrowly avoids spilling salad dressing all over the table. “There’s some old photo albums that I haven’t got around to unpacking yet. Do you want to look through them with me?”</p><p> </p><p>As humiliating as baby photos are- tiny Langas bundled up like caterpillars in the snow- he doesn’t think for long before accepting.</p><p> </p><p>He’s got to start somewhere, after all.</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>Stormy weather gives way to a spike of heat that settles heavily over the rooftops and makes the pavement shimmer below Langa’s wheels. Not even the early onset of summer is enough to deter him from searching for Reki- spending his afternoons cruising the city and catching a nasty case of sunburn on the back of his neck.</p><p> </p><p>He needs to talk to Reki- urgently. Langa has to be the one to bridge the gap, because he understands now that he was perhaps the one who forged it in the first place. He’s not going to let a bit of heatstroke get in the way of that.</p><p> </p><p>Maths class becomes a time for spacing out of the third floor window, for pulling the pieces together. Staging fake conversations in his head where he apologises and Reki decides to skate alongside him once again. (Realistically, Langa knows it won’t be that simple. Apologising is just step one.)</p><p> </p><p>His heart doesn’t race while he skateboards. There’s none of the telltale <em> thud thud thud </em>behind his ribs when he lands a jump and whirls around to try and catch a grin which isn’t there.</p><p> </p><p>It hurts- because Reki loves skating more than the sun, sky, sand on the beach, but Langa hasn’t seen him haunting the park in over a week. There’s no sign of him, no matter how long Langa sits on the railing and calls his name, then quits trying in favour of staring at the gulls overhead.</p><p> </p><p>Neither of them are quick to give up- but here they are, doing just that.</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>When Langa finds Reki, it’s in the same way he met him; wandering the streets by night, catching a flash of red beneath the street lamps.</p><p> </p><p>It’s entirely by accident, while Langa takes a detour through the park on a late-night grocery run. Perhaps it’s just typical; that Reki shows up the moment Langa stops searching for him. Because there he is, unmistakable in the way he takes flight up the ramp, stumbles and hauls himself upright to try again. Langa immediately recognises the half-pipe trick he showed off in the skatepark, before the storm broke.</p><p> </p><p>All of his carefully planned words go out of the window in five seconds flat, as Langa drops his bag on the ground and yells Reki’s name as loud as he can manage.</p><p> </p><p>Reki whirls around- wide-eyed, ready to disappear on the spot. </p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Why won’t you talk to me? </em>
</p><p> </p><p>The street lamps overhead flicker <em> on-off-on </em> when Langa clears the railing and grabs hold of Reki’s arm, before he can vanish for a week and a half all over again. The knowledge that he’s probably smashed the box of eggs in his bag by dropping it is barely an afterthought. </p><p> </p><p>All that matters; Reki, skateboarding, the plan that’s been hatching in the back of Langa’s head ever since Rui taught him what <em> Ikiryo </em>meant.</p><p> </p><p>“Langa,” Reki’s voice is strained, attempting to pull his arm free. “Let go.”</p><p> </p><p>It doesn’t sound like <em> him </em> and Langa panics. All of his words die in the back of his throat, leaving behind a miserable; <em> “You need more momentum, if you want the correct height for that jump.” </em></p><p> </p><p>The shift through confusion, anger and defeat that Reki’s expression goes through is one of the worst things Langa has ever seen in his life. Reki sighs, heavily. “Is that all you wanted to tell me?”</p><p> </p><p>“No!” Keeping a tight grip on Reki’s arm, Langa shakes his head. “No- that’s not what I meant to say.”</p><p> </p><p>“But you were thinking it- right?” With one final tug, Reki pulls his arm free. At the very least, he doesn’t disappear immediately, instead propping himself up against the railing. The street lamps cast shadows right through him, and Langa can’t see his face properly in the lowlight.</p><p> </p><p><em> It’s not meant to go like this. </em> Langa stares down at his hands, the remnants of tiny scrapes and fall damage carved out of his fingers- <em> battle scars </em>, Reki had told him. Evidence that he has fallen, picked himself up, and tried again.</p><p> </p><p>“I want to skate with you,” and so, Langa tries again. “It’s not fun when you’re not there.”</p><p> </p><p>Reki lifts his head ever so slightly, and Langa is done with being careful. </p><p> </p><p>He sits down beside Reki, letting their knees brush together lightly, deliberately.</p><p> </p><p>“I love skating,” Langa tells him. “I love going faster and higher and landing new tricks. I love that I can travel anywhere I want to. But it’s not just skating when it’s with you.”</p><p> </p><p>Finally, <em> finally, </em>Reki looks up; his eyes turned near-luminous under the flickering lights. Even when he looks half-unreal, like he could blow away in a strong enough gust of wind, Langa can’t help but want to stare for hours on end. (He’s glad that Reki’s observation skills aren’t as sharp as they usually are.)</p><p> </p><p>“I’m not very good with- feelings,” Langa’s stride falters slightly when Reki <em> almost </em>laughs- but he’s too far in to stop now. “They get all tangled up and by the time I realise what’s going on, I’ve already said like a hundred stupid things. I didn’t think I needed to worry about that with you because you’ve always read me so well that it’s terrifying- but I forgot that kind of thing has to go both ways.”</p><p> </p><p>There’s a long pause, filled by the quiet sweep of the tide coming in.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t blame you for any of that stuff,” Reki is the one to break it. “I mean, yeah- you’re kind of oblivious when it comes to people’s feelings, but that’s not-”</p><p> </p><p><em> That’s not the issue here </em>goes unspoken.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re a brilliant skater, Langa,” Reki’s voice goes painfully quiet. “When I saw you go down that path with your feet taped to the damn board, it felt like I was witnessing something <em> special. </em>For a moment, I thought it was snowing, here in Okinawa. But then other people started to see that too and-” he tugs at a loose thread hanging from his sleeve, watching the edges unravel. “- I couldn’t join in. I couldn’t reach you any more.”</p><p> </p><p>“But I can only do the things I do because of this-” Langa points to his board, left propped up by the broken bag of eggs. “Because you loved skating enough to notice that I went around corners weird and fell over in the same way each time.”</p><p> </p><p>Fifteen years of snowboarding lessons and some fancy tricks in mid-air are one thing. Reki, the way he looked Langa in the eye and made him believe that skating is infinite- that’s something else entirely. Things like that don’t just grow from experience. It’s something Langa never thought to put into words- because it always felt so much like <em> fact </em>that he can’t believe Reki didn’t notice it himself.</p><p> </p><p><em> But I’m not amazing like you- </em>Reki says, and Langa feels something shatter.</p><p> </p><p>Fact: Reki is brilliant. Langa is the one who’s happy to get swept along with him.</p><p> </p><p>Now, he just has to make sure Reki <em> knows </em>that.</p><p> </p><p>“You love skateboarding, and that’s what makes it exciting.” Fact. “I don’t care what fancy tricks you can do, or whether you can buy me that awful melon soda or not.” Fact. “If you weren’t there, I never would have learned that skating is <em> fun </em>.” Fact.</p><p> </p><p>Langa reaches down to grab Reki’s hand again, and this time he doesn’t pull away.</p><p> </p><p>“C’mon, I already feel bad enough as it is. Stop making me feel guilty on top of that.” The quiet, tearful laugh that accompanies Reki’s response feels too private to be out in the open, so Langa drops his head back to avoid looking. He focuses on where the stars would be instead, if the street lamps didn’t eclipse them out of sight.</p><p> </p><p>“We can’t skate together if you feel guilty,” Still- Langa doesn’t let go of Reki’s hand for a second. “So don’t.”</p><p> </p><p>With Langa’s attention diverted towards the sky, Reki sniffs beside him- the sound muffled behind his sleeve and the roll of the waves. He cries quietly, for someone who usually exists with a supernova inside of his chest. There’s a lot of sides to Reki which Langa wants to earn the privilege of knowing.</p><p> </p><p>“You know,” when Reki speaks up again, his voice cracks at the edges and Langa forces down the urge to turn his head. “You can be pretty straightforward when you want to be.”</p><p> </p><p>“I was just telling the truth,” he replies. Really, he’s barely even scratched the surface.</p><p> </p><p>“It makes me glad,” Reki sniffs again. “That you were the one who was able to see me. Even when I knew it probably couldn’t last, skating with someone else for a while was pretty fun.”</p><p> </p><p>It sounds far too much like a goodbye for Langa’s liking. <em> I just found you- </em> some impulsive part of him wants to yell. <em> Where are you going? </em> </p><p> </p><p>With newfound urgency, Langa scrambles to his feet, faces Reki’s dumbstruck expression, and challenges him to a race.</p><p> </p><p>Eyes still bright with tears, Reki stares up at him and doesn’t say a word.</p><p> </p><p>Langa doesn’t want to know how he must look- it’s not a warm night and he’s hardly dressed to suit the chill, his face is splotchy with sunburn from days beforehand, his hands are balled up into fists. Reki gives him no clue as to whether he’s stepped over a line that shouldn’t be crossed.</p><p> </p><p>“The place you mentioned- that old mine up in the mountains,” Langa elaborates. Trying to keep the excitement out of his voice is a struggle. “Let’s skate there. Together.”</p><p> </p><p>Confusion. <em> That </em>expression Langa can read- the way Reki’s eyebrows tick downwards and he grits his teeth together.</p><p> </p><p>“Race against me,” he continues. If Langa has crossed a line, then he might as well go the whole way. "Skating with you is what made my heart start beating, after it was quiet for so long. Falling all the time hurt like hell and I still don’t remember what my legs looked like without bruises. But it was worth it, because everything felt exciting again.”</p><p> </p><p>Langa is acutely aware that Reki is blinking back tears again, but he’s barrelled through too many walls to stop now. “I have to return the favour now. So skate with me.”</p><p> </p><p>When Reki laughs, it’s barely even half of his usual forest-fire grin, but Langa feels it in his chest like a summertime storm. “Are you challenging me, or confessing to me?” Reki asks. Between the gaps in his fingers, Langa can see his eyes shining sunny-day bright.</p><p> </p><p>(“They’re the same thing, aren’t they?” Langa replies after, with a smile of his own.)</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>“Why the abandoned mine, though?” Later, Reki watches as Langa mourns the smashed up remains of his grocery shopping. He’s lucky the local convenience store is open 24 hours. “Why not by the beach, somewhere less dangerous.”</p><p> </p><p><em> Ikiryo- </em> Langa could reply. <em> A need to complete a task. I think he’s just off doing other things. I tried so many times. </em></p><p> </p><p>“Just a hunch,” Langa shrugs.</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>They set off towards the mine in the early hours of the morning, the path unsettlingly dark as the buildings thin out at the edge of the city. They have a long walk ahead of them, weighed down by their skateboards and the heat of summer, which chose the worst time to come rolling in. Langa just hopes the torch he packed will hold out long enough for them to reach the summit.</p><p> </p><p>Reki swears he knows the path up the mountainside by heart, but he still presses close to Langa when a twig snaps behind them, when the branches creak lightly in the breeze. It doesn’t make the trek any easier- the acute awareness that Reki is close enough to see the scar on his cheek, the faint scatter of freckles across the bridge of his nose.</p><p> </p><p>Langa trips over an empty beer can on the ground and almost goes flying. Not his finest moment.</p><p> </p><p>At least Reki is talking to him again. It’s overwhelming how much Langa missed the sound of his voice over just two weeks- how comforting he finds the way Reki’s words spike when he talks about skating. Langa hopes, if everything goes to plan, that he’ll be able to hear it every day- not just in the dark. </p><p> </p><p>“Are you sure you want to skate here?” Reki turns on his heel once a stretch of chainlink fence looms ahead of them, plastered top to bottom with beaten-up <em> No Trespassing </em>signs. His eyes look overcast in the torch beam. “It’s nothing like the skatepark or the promenade.”</p><p> </p><p>“We can skateboard anywhere,” Langa echoes, because he knows it has to be <em> here. </em>“So let’s try this.”</p><p> </p><p>It takes a few seconds to kick in, but throwing Reki’s words back at him seems to do the trick. The smile he shoots in Langa’s direction is bright white, cut out of the darkness. “Follow me.”</p><p> </p><p>They skirt along the perimeter until Reki finds a weak point in the fence, the chainlink peeling away from its post and adding to the scuff marks in the dirt. As Langa ducks through, he makes a wordless vow to never mention any of this to his mom, or she might just have a heart attack. The fence falls back into place, cut so neatly that it could only be the work of some wire clippers and a person with too much time on their hands.</p><p> </p><p>It’s a small mercy that the mine is still well-lit- for safety reasons, Langa supposes- with floodlights spaced evenly down the length of the trail Reki leads him up. He’s uncharacteristically quiet as they walk, his mouth set into a grim frown as they take another sharp turn upwards.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s the corners you have to watch out for,” Reki warns him, clutching his board tight. “That’s where I-”</p><p> </p><p>He doesn’t finish, but even Langa knows enough to fill in the gaps.</p><p> </p><p>Still, by the time they reach the top of the slope, Reki’s enthusiasm has come back almost entirely- burying his worries out of sight and out of mind. He’s full of nervous energy, bouncing on his heels as Langa hides his backpack out of sight, ready to collect later. There’s already a dull glow on the horizon, as the sun begins to rise quietly upwards.</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t hold anything back,” Reki tells him as they stand in line, with a grin that looks set to burn the world to the ground. </p><p> </p><p>“I wasn’t planning to.” When Langa smiles back, he wonders if Reki sees an avalanche in return.</p><p> </p><p>On the cusp between night and day, snowstorms and summertime- they race.</p><p> </p><p>It’s the closest thing to snowboarding Langa has experienced yet; the steep incline, the long straight runs and sheer corners, the momentum that carries him past Reki and into the air. The important difference: here, Langa’s heart beats loud as thunder. This is what he missed. This is what he <em> loves </em>. </p><p> </p><p>This is what snowboarding ceased to be when Nanako picked up the phone, and a ceramic bowl slipped between her fingers and shattered on the kitchen tiles. This is what Langa has shaped the pieces back into. It’ll never be the same shape it started as, it’ll always look rough around the edges- but it still holds water.</p><p> </p><p>Reki catches up to him at the next corner, pulling off a turn that Langa has never seen before, not a single bit of wasted momentum. Something he’s been keeping hidden, or something he’s recently learned- either way, it just leaves Langa more hungry to <em> win </em>than he was beforehand. </p><p> </p><p>Skating alongside Reki is fun. Skating against Reki is fun. <em> Skating </em>is fun, full stop. Langa would yell it to the entire city below if he could, if he wasn’t busy trying to cut back in front of Reki.</p><p> </p><p>He pulls into the lead on the straight part of the trail, maintains the gap around the next corner, and does not spare a second to glance over his shoulder, as much as he wants to.</p><p> </p><p>The world eclipses down to the path in front, the sound of Reki’s board just behind him; focused in until everything else turns to static. Langa barely even registers it as the track plateaus out and he sails across the makeshift finish line they scratched into the dirt, Reki kicking up dust just meters behind him.</p><p> </p><p>When Langa gathers up the presence of mind to actually <em> stop, </em> Reki is already off his board, staring back up the slope with one hand pressed against where his heart should be. The <em> grin </em>on his face puts the sunrise to shame. Because even though Reki didn’t win, it was never really about that. Even Langa has ulterior motives, sometimes.</p><p> </p><p>“I did it,” Reki’s voice sounds half-dazed as he spins around to face Langa properly. “Langa, I didn’t crash. I made it all the way to the end.”</p><p> </p><p>They’ve both been improving. Langa tells him as such, and barely has the time to brace himself before Reki takes him by the shoulders and shakes him <em> hard. </em></p><p> </p><p>“Don’t try and distract me from the fact that you won!” he doesn’t remove his hands from Langa’s shoulders, letting them rest there like they belong. “You’re still miles ahead of me.”</p><p> </p><p>Langa goes to say otherwise, before he catches the <em> look </em>in Reki’s eyes. Far from defeated, nothing like the night before.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t care how far in front you end up,” Reki continues. “As long as you promise that you’ll keep skating with me.”</p><p> </p><p>And that’s a pact which Langa knows he can keep.</p><p> </p><p>Without the city lights leeching the colour from the sky, the dawn is prettier than Langa has ever seen it before as he holds out his pinkie finger to seal the deal. Reki ruins the mood with a snort of amusement. </p><p> </p><p>“Seriously? We’re not five,” he gives Langa’s shoulder a tiny shove, but links their fingers together regardless. Langa doesn’t know the exact time required for a pinkie promise to become real, but the longer they stand, the more he starts to suspect it’s not <em> just </em>a promise that they’re making. </p><p> </p><p>Langa takes a chance, and tries to clumsily transition into holding hands. Perceptive as ever, Reki grabs on tight without needing to be asked.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll get to stand beside you eventually, just you wait,” he sets his own side of the deal, squinting towards the horizon. “I can catch up.”</p><p> </p><p>It’s a challenge and a promise and something altogether more soft. Langa feels Reki’s grip around his hand tighten, like he’s scared gravity is going to shift irreversibly.</p><p> </p><p>“Are you challenging me,” Langa holds tighter in return, echoing Reki’s words from the night before because it just feels <em> right. </em>Reki gave him these feelings, this static in his chest, this unexpected love of summer- it makes sense that his words suit it best. “Or are you confessing to me?”</p><p> </p><p>Reki blinks, speechless in a way that shouldn’t be as satisfying as it is- before he laughs and laughs and laughs some more, summer bright and more alive than ever.</p><p> </p><p><em> Take a guess- </em> it says- <em> isn’t it obvious? </em></p><p> </p><p>Langa has been called oblivious more times than he can count on both hands, so maybe <em> obvious </em>is what it always has been.</p><p> </p><p>The sun fractures over the horizon while his laughter still echoes, splitting the sky with orange light and turning Reki’s hair forest-fire red. Langa wants to ask if he can run his fingers through it, because that’s what people do when they like someone and that person likes them in return. But, determined to get ahead, Reki beats him to the chase.</p><p> </p><p>He doesn’t even make it through the first word, before the sun splinters through him and he’s gone.</p><p> </p><p>Langa freezes.</p><p> </p><p>“Reki?” Forcing the words out is hard. Staring at the empty space in front of him is <em> worse. </em>Langa squeezes his eyes shut and opens them again, like a kid waiting for someone to stop hiding, for the joke to be over.</p><p> </p><p>If this is the punchline, then it’s not funny at all.</p><p> </p><p>“Reki, I can’t see you,” He tries again, a little more desperate.</p><p> </p><p>(In the place where Reki’s hands once touched, Langa feels nothing but cold.)</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>Nanako doesn’t ask about the second skateboard Langa carries home with him, and she doesn’t interrupt when he falls into bed and sleeps until mid-afternoon.</p><p> </p><p>Small mercies, indeed.</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>Reki’s absence from the skatepark the following day is painful for a completely different reason. </p><p> </p><p>Langa sits on top of one of the ramps, Reki’s board a poor substitute for the real deal as he searches for articles on returning Ikiryo to their bodies. None of them are helpful- he’d be sorted if he had to dispel an evil spirit or avoid a curse- but Reki was<em> (is) </em>neither of those things. </p><p> </p><p>He always just assumed it would be a gentle, kind affair. Reki would wave goodbye from the entrance to the park, then run off to reunite with his body. A <em> see you later </em>, to be continued.</p><p> </p><p>Instead, Langa finds himself alone. He tries to skate across the park on Reki’s board, scrapes the skin off his palm and almost passes out at the sight of blood. Sticking bandages to his own hand is more difficult than he expected.</p><p> </p><p>He starts seeing Reki <em> everywhere, </em>flinching every time he sees red hair across the street, almost walking into a lamp post after catching a bright grin in the window of a coffee shop, hearing the sound of wheels against tarmac and calling out before he even has the chance to look. It’s even more like a haunting than when Reki was stood by Langa’s side, invisible to everyone but him.</p><p> </p><p>There’s a buzz that ripples through class on Monday morning, crackling like static in the air- but Langa is used to storm surges by now. He tunes it out in favor of staring through the window, watching the clouds drift from one side of the sky to the other. If the teacher catches Langa and his thousand yard stare, then he takes pity and does not call on him once.</p><p> </p><p>Nanako waits until Thursday to ask, sitting down on the edge of Langa’s bed as he struggles through a sheet of maths work that’s three days overdue. </p><p> </p><p>“Did something happen?” She says, hesitant. The question is as open-ended as they come, because Hasegawa Nanako might not be the most perceptive or the best with words, but she knows when to tread with caution.</p><p> </p><p><em> Reki </em>is the only answer which Langa can summon up. </p><p> </p><p>“Want to talk about it?” His mom offers.</p><p> </p><p><em> Talking about it </em>would require admitting out loud that he’s scared of never seeing Reki again- voicing his fears, making them real. Langa shakes his head.</p><p> </p><p>“Want to go to the beach, then?”</p><p> </p><p>It’s far too late in the day for a beach trip- they haven’t eaten dinner yet, Langa has homework to do, and he’s pretty certain his mom has no shortage of paperwork to catch up on. Still, he follows Nanako outside.</p><p> </p><p>They drive out to an isolated cove far beyond the city, with white sand and a horizon stained pink by the setting sun. A <em> proper </em>beach with palm trees and all- a piece of Nanako’s childhood, she explains, as she kicks off her shoes and wades past her ankles into the water.</p><p> </p><p>Langa fails to skip a handful of flat rocks across the waves, and Nanako tells him how she first met Oliver around here while he was studying abroad, how he almost passed out from heatstroke right in front of her. Little stories which Langa remembers from embarrassing dinner table conversations, but doesn’t mind hearing again.</p><p> </p><p>(Both of them are missing something- but it can wait for another day.)</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>It takes a week for Langa to question if he’s made a terrible mistake.</p><p> </p><p>The dread creeps in like frostbite, that maybe he had it all wrong- that Ikiryo was never the right word. That Reki is gone for good.</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>Summertime humidity is not the only thing that keeps Langa awake in the middle of the night.</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>It’s mid-June that brings Reki back.</p><p> </p><p>Skating hasn’t felt fun in weeks, but Langa has to do <em> something </em>to avoid a night of staring restlessly at the cracks in his ceiling- and tiring himself out by skateboarding until the sun sets is his only option.</p><p> </p><p>Langa throws himself into a jump, faster and higher than the one before, seeking excitement that never comes.</p><p> </p><p>Then Reki calls his name- loud and clear and unmistakable.</p><p> </p><p>He’s running down the promenade, stumbling over his feet like he’s only just remembered what having a body feels like, and Langa feels the sun eclipsing itself from the sky.</p><p> </p><p>The best part is; someone tells Reki to be quiet.</p><p> </p><p>A woman with a baby stroller and a sour expression, who frowns at Reki’s firecracker grin like he’s always been there, then moves on with her day. He fits back into summer effortlessly. </p><p> </p><p>When Langa meets him halfway, Reki has to double over to catch his breath, and it gives Langa a precious few moments to crush his thoughts back into something coherent. Because Reki is right in front of him- missing his headband, unsteady on his feet, wearing indoor shoes as if he just climbed out of his window and made a run for it. All Langa can think is that he’s here and he’s alive and-</p><p> </p><p>“Sorry it took me so long,” Reki grins, then pulls him into a hug.</p><p> </p><p>Their limbs end up in all the wrong places and Reki’s hair still clings to that awful hospital smell- but Langa can’t bring himself to care when his hands are so <em> warm. </em></p><p> </p><p>“I got discharged from hospital like an hour ago,” Reki answers Langa’s questions before he even needs to voice them. “I’m not supposed to do exercise until I get the all clear from my physiotherapist, so my mom is gonna throw a fit when I get back home.”</p><p> </p><p>Langa is almost glad that his face is buried in Reki’s shirt, otherwise anyone walking by could see the way he’s grinning hard enough for it to hurt. “It’s really you,” he says, half disbelieving.</p><p> </p><p>Reki nods against his shoulder, and that’s all the reassurance Langa needs.</p><p> </p><p>As much as he claims he wants to, Reki doesn’t buy him soda from the vending machine- Langa is the only one of them who brought money, and even then he only has enough for one purchase. They sit on the railing by the sea, passing a bottle of lukewarm melon soda back and forth, and Langa can’t help but smile a little wider every time Reki grimaces at the taste.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s probably a good thing that you didn’t see me earlier,” swinging his feet unsteadily below the railing, Reki gives up on the soda and pushes it back into Langa’s hands. “I felt pretty pathetic for a while. I <em> cried </em>when one of the nurses saw me and asked if I was hungry. Kept falling flat on my face every time I stood up, too.”</p><p> </p><p>Reki doesn’t go into the details, but the recovery process is far from over- that much is clear. There’s no easy route to take.</p><p> </p><p>“Will you still be able to skateboard?” Langa knows, distantly, that he should probably pose the question with a little more tact- but Reki has never cared about things like that.</p><p> </p><p>“I mean, I have to if I want to catch up, don’t I?” He grins, but it’s half-overcast. It doesn’t quite reach his eyes, not in the way it should.</p><p> </p><p>Langa stares at Reki hard, trying to imitate that expression his mom gives him when she wants him to talk about things. Somehow, it seems to do the trick.</p><p> </p><p>“There’s no reason I shouldn’t be able to,” Reki tries again. “It might just take a little while to get back to where I was. It’s not going to be easy, I don’t think.”</p><p> </p><p>“When you can skate again,” Langa says it like it’s inevitable- because <em> Kyan Reki </em> and <em> Giving Up </em> are two concepts that he’ll never be able to align. Not if, <em> when </em>. “Let’s skate to the beach during the daytime.”</p><p> </p><p>There’s a world of possibilities waiting for them now- not just nighttime forays and dodging car headlights. The city has never felt so infinite.</p><p> </p><p>Luckily, Reki seems just as taken with the idea as Langa is.</p><p> </p><p>“We can go to Dope Sketch too- I want to pick out some stickers for your board,” Reki adds on, his smile growing brighter. He brushes his knee against Langa’s- the touch warm warm warm. Langa leans into it, shamelessly. “And afterwards I have to take you to this ramen place on the other side of the city, you haven’t <em> lived </em>until you’ve tasted their tonkotsu broth.” </p><p> </p><p>“Sounds like a date,” Langa hums, without really thinking. Pressed up against Reki’s side, he feels sleepier than he has done in days- more effective than any attempt to skate off all his excess energy. </p><p> </p><p>Next to him, Reki cycles through surprise, panic and acceptance in five seconds flat, before easing into a smile of his own. “It could be a date, if you want.”</p><p> </p><p>Both their feelings have been exposed to the sun for a long while now- even if neither of them were much good at noticing it. Langa supposes that this is the natural progression, the next step. “I do want.”</p><p> </p><p>And that’s just it. Nothing changes. Reki lets out a giddy noise and his face goes almost as red as his hair, but the lay of the land between them doesn’t shift. There’s no sudden fireworks, no tears or dramatic speeches like the bad rom-coms Nanako likes to pretend just came on the TV by chance. It’s just another fact; summer is warm, the vending machine is broken, Reki likes him in return.</p><p> </p><p>“At the abandoned mine, before I- you know,” Reki traces a pattern into the lines of Langa’s palm, feigning nonchalance even though he’s blushing to the tip of his ears. “I was going to ask if I could kiss you.”</p><p> </p><p>Well- maybe <em> some </em>things have changed.</p><p> </p><p>Reki takes the way Langa freezes up embarrassingly as a bad sign and backpedals immediately. “I mean, we don’t have to if you don’t want to. Like, it’d be nice, but if you’d rather not- then that’s totally-”</p><p> </p><p>Langa kisses him.</p><p> </p><p>It’s probably the worst time for it- all Langa can taste is that godawful melon soda, the air is thick with humidity and Reki’s hair still smells like hospital corridors- but it’s Reki. It’s Reki, Langa can feel the pulse beneath his skin as he cradles the side of his face, and the best thing about messing up is this; you can always try again afterwards.</p><p> </p><p>With his forehead pressed against Langa’s, Reki laughs dizzily into the tiny space left between them, so close that Langa doesn’t think he could look away even if he tried. It’s a new laugh, one he wants to keep for himself- all bright summer mornings and light skipping across the waves.</p><p> </p><p>“What’s so funny?” The question only makes him laugh <em> more </em>.</p><p> </p><p>“Nothing,” Reki reaches up, brushes Langa’s hair out of his eyes, smiles so soft that Langa thinks he might just die then and there. Maybe he’s overreacting, again. “Nothing at all.”</p><p> </p><p>(And, if it’s anything like learning to skateboard- then Langa supposes he’ll have to kiss Reki again till he gets it right.)</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>Three facts about Kyan Reki:</p><p>- He gets tiny freckles across the bridge of his nose in summer, just visible when Langa catches himself staring for a little too long.</p><p>- He puts a smiley face sticker on every school desk he’s ever had. Langa finds concentrating in class even harder, nowadays.</p><p>- Him and Nanako get along like a house on fire- impossible to ignore, and <em>disastrous </em>for Langa’s health.</p><p> </p><p>Still, Langa can’t help but smile, at the sight of Reki in his kitchen, Reki’s skateboard propped up by his door, Reki wearing his hoodie because he started to shiver under the air conditioning. The sleeves fall past his hands a little as he helps to chop the vegetables for dinner.</p><p> </p><p>Even his mom bringing up the embarrassing story about the time Langa got stuck up a tree in the garden is not enough to shake the smile off his face.</p><p> </p><p>It’s the little things that catch him off guard, that make Langa feel like he’s finally pulled off a new trick that took him weeks to get just right. The way Reki wipes his eyes on the sleeves of Langa’s hoodie as he slices up the onions. The way his hands are warm as ever when he prods Langa in the cheek and feeds him a carrot stick off the chopping board. The way Nanako catches Langa by the door, elbows him gently and tells him <em> it took you long enough. </em>(To invite Reki over, to talk about skating more freely, to smile like that again.)</p><p> </p><p><em> You have no idea, </em>Langa would tell her, if he knew where to start.</p><p> </p><p>Instead, he goes to grab an extra placemat out of the cupboard. It’s been a while since he’s set a table for three.</p><p>
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  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>[insert palm trees here]</p>
<p>twt: bee__calm</p></blockquote></div></div>
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